Families left without heating and hot water for months on Surrey Docks estates

Residents on council estates in Surrey Docks have been left without reliable heating and hot water for months during winter, following repeated failures in communal heating systems. 

Homes on estates in Surrey Docks, including areas around Globe Pond and Russia Dock Road, have experienced ongoing problems since November. Residents report frequent breakdowns, missed repairs and long periods without heating or hot water. Further outages took place on 7 January, when heating and hot water were cut for several hours during freezing conditions. 

Families say they have had to rely on electric heaters to keep their homes warm, leading to sharply increased electricity bills. This has happened while residents continue to pay full service charges and receive no compensation when communal systems fail. 

Councillors say the situation points to ongoing problems with the council’s housing repairs service and its handling of contractors, with residents left to deal with the consequences during the coldest months of the year. 

The Liberal Democrats are calling on Southwark Council to urgently stabilise communal heating systems in Surrey Docks, compensate residents for additional energy costs, and set out how it will prevent repeated failures in future. 

A resident on an estate in Surrey Docks said: 

“The heating breaks down all the time, sometimes every week, but today was the worst. It was freezing and the heating and hot water were off for hours. 

I’ve now had to order another heater in case this happens again. We pay service charges but get nothing back when the communal heating keeps failing. It just doesn’t feel fair.” 

Commenting, Cllr Adam Hood, Liberal Democrat Councillor for Surrey Docks, said: 

“Residents should never be left without heating and hot water for months during winter. What we are seeing here is a communal heating system that keeps failing, with people forced to cover the cost themselves just to stay warm. 

Residents are paying service charges and still having to buy heaters because repairs are not being done properly. This is a Labour council that talks about making the repairs service better, but all I can see is one that’s getting worse.  

The council needs to fix these systems, support residents when outages happen, ensure residents receive the compensation they are rightly entitled to under the council’s existing policies, and explain why this has been allowed to go on for so long.”