Now four years on from the damning findings, we take a look at some of the data and speak to residents about how the local authority is faring
Almost exactly four years ago, in October 2021, the Housing Ombudsman published a report which caused a stir in a certain West London borough. The Ombudsman’s report found that, based on maladministration findings per 10,000 homes, Labour-led Hammersmith and Fulham Council was the worst social landlord in the country when it came to damp and mould issues.
The council was also listed as the worst at handling complaints, with 142 landlords assessed by the Ombudsman between April 2019 and March 2021. What followed was a combination of condemnation, apologies and promises to act.
Conservative councillor Adronie Alford accused the local authority of failing local residents, telling a Full Council meeting in January 2022 the ranking was “outrageous and unforgivable”. She said: “I hope that we never have such an appalling Ombudsman report about us ever again.”
Former Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Lisa Homan, said at the same meeting the council took the report “very seriously and deeply regrets the problems…that many of our residents have suffered. The council apologises, I apologise, to all the residents who have been affected and want to assure residents the council is committed to eradicating these problems with damp and mould at pace.”
In May 2023 the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, went a step further and launched an investigation into Hammersmith and Fulham’s handling of complaints and repairs due to concerns of “systemic failure”.
Looking at all issues rather than just damp and mould, the investigation, which reviewed findings in cases determined between May 29, 2023 and September 29, 2023, identified problems with the council’s approach to responding to and resolving complaints.
A number of recommendations were made in the report published the following February, from creating a clear process within the repairs policy detailing how repair appointments will be managed, to creating a process to effectively monitor compensation payments.
Mr Blakeway said at the time that it was ‘encouraging’ to see some of the changes made by the council, and in a statement, the local authority pointed to steps it had taken since the investigation was launched.
Former Leader of the Conservative Opposition, Cllr Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler, however said residents had suffered “and the council has been rightly blamed by the Ombudsman. This council claims to be compassionate when it is clear they’re not.”
So as we approach the four-year anniversary of that 2021 report, the LDRS asks: what has changed? What does the data indicate? And most importantly, how do residents on some of the affected estates feel about their homes?
The data
To get an understanding of the numbers behind damp and mould cases in Hammersmith and Fulham the LDRS requested fresh data from the Housing Ombudsman detailing recent findings. The Ombudsman’s 2021 report ordered landlords by maladministration findings per 10,000 homes to get a fair picture of performance.
The new data, provided to the LDRS covering condensation, damp and mould findings between April 1 2023 and August 18 2025, instead details figures without taking into account the number of homes. It also refers to ‘findings’ rather than ‘determinations’, which was the metric used in the 2021 report.
This was flagged by a spokesperson for the Ombudsman who said there could be multiple findings per determination, and that it has updated its methodology as it more accurately reflects what it identifies. A final point worth noting is that the year relates to the finding rather than when each case began, which may have been some time prior.
Looking at the Ombudsman’s data Hammersmith and Fulham did not appear in the 10 worst landlords for condensation, damp and mould over the period covered. The list does not specify exactly where the council would have featured in a complete run-down of all landlords.
Coming in at number one was L&Q with 280 findings, 237 of which were maladministration, meaning there was a fault by the landlord. Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing came in tenth, recording 86 findings of which 68 were maladministration.
Two London boroughs, Lambeth and Lewisham, were included in the top 10, recording total maladministration findings of 120 and 85. Hammersmith and Fulham Council meanwhile reported 40 instances of maladministration from 49 findings.
The data shows the council also saw a drop in findings between 2023/24 and 2024/25, the two full financial years covered. For 2023/24 it recorded 23 findings, 22 maladministration, while in 2024/25 this had dropped to 18, 13 maladministration.
For 2025/26 up to August 18 it had recorded eight findings, five of which were maladministration.
The council’s own data has also hinted at improvements. A paper published earlier this summer revealed how as of July 24, 91 per cent of housing repairs were completed within target. It added the council is already meeting requirements set out in Awaab’s Law, named after Awaab Ishak who in December 2020 died in Rochdale aged two due to exposure to black mould.
Scheduled to come into effect in October 2025, the law stipulates a series of timeframes for hazards to be addressed. Hammersmith and Fulham, at the time of the report, was completing 94 per cent of damp and mould cases within such timeframes.
The council also said it had carried out proactive planned preventative maintenance across 2,249 homes, 14 per cent of its stock, over the previous 12 months in a bid to mitigate future issues.
A spokesperson has since said 97 per cent of damp and mould repairs are being completed on time, with cases down by more than 73 per cent since April 2023. Another set of results the council directed the LDRS to was the responses to its Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) for 2024/25, which showed improvements on its scores for 2023/24.
This included 73.3 per cent saying they were satisfied their home is safe, up 11 per cent on the year before, and 65.8 per cent satisfied with the repair service, up 12 per cent.
Cllr Frances Umeh, Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness, said: “I’m pleased to see tenant satisfaction levels rise. But I know there is a lot more to do and promise that we won’t let up in ensuring residents get the housing service they deserve.”
The residents
Clement Attlee Court and the West Kensington Estate are among the borough’s developments to have faced the most significant issues with damp and mould. The LDRS has previously spoken to residents living on the estates, including a woman who had moss and mushrooms growing out of the mould in her bathroom.
She had claimed the issues contributed to her daughter being rushed to A&R for a collapsed lung. Shirley Wiggins, who spent more than 40 years living on the West Kensington Estate before moving out in 2023, told the LDRS for this piece she had suffered “unresolved leaks, asbestos, anti-social behaviour and repair failures” before having to relocate.
She claimed too many leaders had operated “from ego, not service. They forget that public service is a duty: to listen, to protect, to act with integrity. Instead, residents are treated as problems to be managed, not people to be respected.”
However, this is far from the only picture painted of the estates in the press over the last few years. In 2023 MyLondon visited Clement Attlee Court, with the attending reporter writing of a profound sense of community.
“It’s a nice, clean place and very friendly,” resident Abdul Wahabutt said. “There’s no colour creed to here either, it’s a mixed society. Ten years ago there were lots of gangs and fights in the streets, but now you’ll walk around and see loads of people with their doors open looking out and chatting to people.”
For 2024/25, data shared with the LDRS following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request indicated both estates were among those with the most works issued by the council. Clement Attlee recorded 1,691 call-outs, beaten only by the White City Estate, while West Kensington had 1,136.
Visiting the estates on two separate days earlier this month the LDRS heard a range of experiences regarding the council’s efforts to tackle damp and mould. Quite a few tenants said they had either had no issues or the local authority had recently resolved outstanding problems.
Bill Rawlings, 83, and Oshaye Sterling, 28, were two of those to speak positively of the council. Mr Rawlings said some residents fail to open their windows or properly aerate their homes, though added: “If you keep your place decorated, it’s not a bad borough this borough.”
Mr Sterling said he had a problem with damp and mould this time last year but that the council came and sorted it out. “Maybe not instantly, but they always get around to it for sure,” he said.
The LDRS also spoke to several tenants on the West Kensington Estate who said they had not had problems regarding damp and mould. Rachael, who did not wish to give her surname, however was one of those to say she was still encountering issues with her flat.
She said her home had been impacted by a flood from a neighbour upstairs a couple of years ago. This had led to her bathroom and kitchen having to be replaced, and she is currently awaiting work to be done to her bathroom wall.
Rachael said one of the primary ongoing frustrations is that there are several teams tasked with resolving requests, leading to confusion and a lack of communication.
Asked whether she had noticed any improvements in the last couple of years, Rachael said: “I think management-wise it’s still pretty shoddy. Even though they’ve booked jobs no-one will tell you, I won’t even get a text, someone will just turn up. I think that’s the hardest bit. Because I’ve called them a few times and said look, you’re wasting your own resources.”
“There’s so many people that I think it’s just a waste of money,” she added. “One person can come and look and say what needs to happen.”
A council spokesperson said repair works for a damp and mould issue reported in July 2025 were completed on time, and a routine post-six-week check-in call was also carried out. They confirmed a new repair request had been raised for Rachael’s bathroom wall, and that an inspection is booked in for this week.
On the neighbouring Gibbs Green Estate, Elsa Rivera-Vaille, 85, lives with her daughter-in-law, Mayerlin Montanez, 32, and grandson Liam Lopez, 8. Ms Rivera-Vaille, who the LDRS communicated with largely through MyLondon’s Spanish-speaking photographer, said she first noticed the black mould 10 years ago.
She said she wants to be moved to another flat but to stay local, due to her grandson attending a nearby special education school. “But I am worried because the winter is coming,” she added.
Ms Montanez claimed council workers had attended “but they never do anything. We lost two wardrobes, they are black at the back, and the wood starts to rot. We had to pay for them to avoid getting sick. They cost £180 each.”
She said: “The black mould is so bad that it gets inside the clothes in my suitcase. We are always cleaning the black mould.” The family’s concerns included not just Liam’s health but also Ms Rivera-Vaille’s, who has arthritis.
Ms Montanez said communication with the council can be ‘difficult’, and that they are concerned about the coming colder months.
A council spokesperson said no damp and mould repair requests had been raised by Ms Rivera-Vaille, but that following the LDRS’s approach the team got in touch and arranged for a visit to inspect the property. They added the inspection has since been completed and repair works are to begin shortly.
£1m-a-week spent to upgrade council homes
Cllr Jose Afonso, Leader of the Conservative Opposition, described the Labour administration’s record on social housing as “perhaps the most significant failure of their administration”.
“From being ranked the worst social landlord in the country for damp and mould – to most recently being in the news for dangerous windows, it is clear that Labour prefers focusing on shiny things such as a £250 million Town Hall rather than on their own tenants.
“It does not surprise me that residents remain unhappy. Speaking to many residents across the borough – they regularly raise that issues persist, and that the council still does not listen to them. Our position is clear – if elected next year to run the council we will restore dignity and a duty of care to our social tenants.”
Cllr Umeh said: “These Conservative councillors hope our residents will forget what they did to our social housing the last time they were in office, so they can do it all again.
“Shockingly, they slashed millions of pounds from the council homes maintenance programme and locked us into a deliberately underfunded ten-year repairs contract which left our estates in total disrepair – a situation we have had to unpick and remedy.
“The Conservatives did this because they had begun a programme of demolishing and selling off all our borough’s council homes to overseas land speculators. Their abhorrent justification was they believed social housing was no more than ‘ghettos’ and ‘barracks for the poor’.
“The residents of the Gibbs Green and West Kensington estates were the first to experience the Conservatives’ wicked plan to ship them out of the borough. Ask them and they’ll recall the 12-year nightmare they experienced before this Labour administration found a way to get their homes back, save them from eviction and begin returning their homes to a fit and proper standard.
“The Conservatives broke Hammersmith and Fulham’s council housing service and they did so on purpose. It’s not been easy by any measure but we are the ones putting it back together and we are doing that at speed. Our residents remember that you simply cannot trust these Conservatives with our council homes.”
Council explanation on what it is doing
A Hammersmith and Fulham Council spokesperson said: “We’re spending £1m-a-week to refurbish and modernise our council-owned homes over the next 10 years. We’ve put an enhanced repairs team in place for quicker and better fixes, slashed the number of damp and mould cases, handed down tough performance targets to our new maintenance contractors and built a customer-focused team to handle repairs and complaints.
“These improvements have been reflected in a significant increase in positive feedback from residents, according to the latest tenants’ satisfaction survey. The Housing Ombudsman has also recognised the positive changes we have made.
“We know there is still more to be done and won’t stop in our drive to ensure residents get the housing service that they deserve.”
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