About half of the flats in Crescent House—the largest block on the Golden Lane Estate—have internal (i.e. completely windowless) kitchen and bathrooms. These need electric fans to ventilate them and from the day the flats were completed in 1959-1961 they were fitted with electric fans. Quite apart from kitchen and bathroom smells, effective ventilation is vital to control condensation in flats. Condensation is not just unpleasant but it can make people ill and leads quickly to mould growth, which can make them even more ill. Condensation and mould in its flats is something the City of London Coporation says it is particularly concerned about.
As the fans in Crescent House were almost 60 years old (and many had already been replaced) it is not surprising a programme of wholesale replacement was needed. But it is difficult to know why in 2018 the fans were ripped out of Crescent House flats and residents were left without any replacement.
A year later, the City of London asked a small architects firm called Studio Partington to design a replacement. The architects switched on their computers and residents asked to see drawings, in order to show that the new ventilation system would not be an eyesore, since the new fans were to be situated just above the front entrance doors to their flats. A ‘section’ drawing was produced by the architects showing that the fans would be invisible by a normal person walking along the passage to the flats.
But the architects specified new fans about four times larger than those previously fitted—so large in fact that they were, once installed in Autumn 2019, highly visible—in spite of the section drawing showing they would not be. It turns out the ‘normal person’ shown on the section drawing was of unusually small stature. Oooooops !
The fans were very ugly additions. Nobody likes ugly ventillation plant near their front doors, but in this case it wasnt just a matter of we-dont-care-what-it looks-like. The always-on large new fans were screwed to the concrete roof without dampers and caused vibrations which ran through the concrete structure, causing annoyance and sleepless nights to those on the top two floors. Double Ooooops !
The Corporation of London and their architects forgot that they should have obtained listed Building Consent for such an installation, as specified in the Listed Building Management Guidelines. (Crescent House is a Grade II* listed building). Residents have told the Loss Assessors that when they pointed this out to the Corporation of London they claimed they didn’t need listed building consent as the replacments were “like for like”. So one resident sent photos of the new fans to the City’s planning department who in no time at all disagreed and said:-
1 – the new fans were not like-for-like, but considerably larger
2 – They did need Listed Building Consent
3 – The larger news fans would not get it
Triple Oooooops ! It is even possible that the Corporation officers and their consultants may have committed a prima facie offence under Section 9 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act of 1990 by carrying out works to a listed building without proper consent.
The 17 fans were hastily removed and we show some of them here looking rather sad as they lie in the basement refuse yard, waiting to be taken away. The Loss Assessors are very eco-minded and very much hope the fans were recycled and not scrapped. Somebody, somewhere must want some nearly new ugly fans. The Loss Assessors also wonder who paid the costs of this cock-up; was it residents?
But what since then…. Has another solution been implemented to deal with total lack of ventilation and the consequent condensation and mould in internal kitchens and/or bathrooms?
No.
MORE THAN FIVE YEARS ON, THE FLATS ARE STILL WAITING FOR REPLACEMENT VENTILATION FANS. MANY OF THE FLATS STILL SUFFER BADLY FROM CONDENSATION, AND MOULD. NOBODY SHOULD BE SURPRISED ABOUT THIS.
Golden Lane at Risk 
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