IN an extraordinary BBC interview, the leader of Thurrock Council has detailed why he thinks tower blocks in Grays should be pulled down – but he says it may take five to ten years for that to happen and in the meantime the council will have to pump millions into the blighted homes to make them habitable.

Cllr Rob Gledhill, leader of Thurrock Council's Conservative administration, was talking on BBC Essex's Sadie Nine show on Monday (28 February) and seemed to be shooting from the hip with his comments about significant problems at the flats – which the local administration had previously played down.

Thurrock Nub News has been covering issues at the tower blocks in south Grays and Blackshots for many months, together with the tower blocks in Chadwell St Mary and Tilbury, leading the media pathway that has since been picked up by national newspapers and the BBC.

Other than concern expressed by Conservative councillors Joy Redsell and Ben Maney about the three blocks in Blackshots, the Conservatives' official position has been to play down any problems, indeed deny their existence.

However, a chink in that stance began to appear late last year as the national coverage began to build and last month borough MP Jackie Doyle-Price unlocked the floodgates with a damning condemnation of the way the local administration had treated the residents and she said it was time for the towers to tumble.

Housing portfolio holder Cllr Luke Spillman began to hitch a ride on the bandwagon for change when he announced he had trashed previous plans to sell off part of the council's civic offices site and then build social housing and then – at a meeting last month – he announced it was his hope to bring down the blocks as well.

Now leader Cllr Rob Gledhill has gone public too, featuring in a significant interview yesterday and adding his own ambition for scaling up the council flats development on the civic offices site – just 48 hours before a report about building 82 homes goes before the council's housing overview and scrutiny committee.

Though the report is specific about building 82 homes (56 one bedroom apartments and 26 two bedroom apartments) Cllr Gledhill upped the ante on that to '93,94' homes and then added: "My personal view is that we could possibly go a little bit higher."

That would appear to undermine weeks of work by three strategic lead officers on the council who have compiled the report with carefully constructed cost implications.

Cllr Gledhill also literally introduced a bolt from the blue as a reason why six of the tower blocks in south Grays are currently without insulating cladding – saying it was because bolts on the cladding were problematic, a completely new reason for the months of delay on the project.

Nub News understands, and the view has never previously been challenged, that the hugely expensive delay is down to mistakes in measuring and building replacement windows!

In his pre-recorded interview with BBC Essex's political reporter Simon Dedman, Cllr Gledhill went into detail on his view of the Grays tower blocks situation.

He said: "They had a cladding on. We knew we had to replace the cladding. The cladding has to be replaced every ten to 15 years, not because of the cladding itself, the cladding is absolutely perfectly fine, it's actually the bolts that hold it in.

"So we started the project, then suddenly there was 'we actually haven't got all the equipment to finish it'.

"That took a long time for it actually to be filtered down.

"Now I walked past it quite often, I'd like to say every day but I'm not in the office every day.

"So I see it, I've got friends that live in the flats, not just the one flat, but right across the board.

"Some are seeing no mould at all, others are seeing it really bad. I can't put in because they are north facing, or this facing or whatever, it seems to be from flat, to flat to flat.

"There is quite clearly an inherent problem from properties that have a 25 year lifespan that are now heading towards their fortieth rather than their 25th.

"So what we'd like to do, I'm sure everyone would have seen the interview by Jackie Doyle-Price MP that we need to step up to the plate. They should have come down a number of years ago under the previous administration. They decided not to because of individual case reasons rather than looking at the whole fabric.

"So we are looking at cabinet to have a report in relation to the properties in Blackshots which are, unfortunately with their cladding in a much worse situation, and we will be looking to decant, into new builds, the current residents. Knock them down, rebuild."

Asked about the six tower blocks in South Grays he said: "As we know we've got the back of the council offices which will be coming down, again very shortly.

"We are now looking at how many more flats we can put on that site, energy efficient, not mould-ridden so we can start doing exactly the same; decant from the estate and hopefully knock the whole lot down and start again."

Again quizzed by the interviewer, who said: "Even though right now you are spending millions of pounds refurbishing, to put in new windows, to put in new cladding you are going to spend that money and then tear down those towers", Cllr Gledhill responded: "We are going to have to put in that money.

"If this was 'Sim City', yes we could just throw something up, put people in, knock them down, then next term do it again.

"We are not looking at something that is going to happen overnight. We are not looking at something that is going to happen in a year's time. We are going to have to look at a very long process to build, decant, reduce, build, decant and so on.

"So, some of these people may still be in these properties in five, ten years' time.

"I'd love to be able to say we could put these houses up, move everybody out, and then not bother recladding. That's not going to happen."

Cllr Gledhill was asked: "Your hope now is that across the road, with the new buildings to build more flats. How many to move people from Seabrooke into the new flats where the civic office are?"

He said: "That's part of the discussion we are having with our officers, we are looking at 93 or 94 flats at the moment.

"My personal view is we could possibly go a little bit higher to get more people into them but again not just cramming people in. It's nice, safe, mould-free energy efficient homes that's going to be able to support them not just for a couple of months, not for just a couple of years but hopefully for the life of those people and the life of those people who will take them on, later on.

"We have a process in local government for doing this kind of thing. We do have to consult with the residents and, of course, if the reidents come back, or the majority of them come back and say no, we want you to improve this or do that, we will have to look at that.

"But of course, we can get a much better return for residents in the sense of building new, rather than patching up old.

"Some of the states of some of the flats that we saw before the cladding came off was a bit – 'oh, this is shocking', but as a former portfolio holder for housing I know that the lack of investment over decades, not just under this administration nor the last administration but going back pretty much Ad infinitum, has meant that those flats are now no longer fit for purpose. Some of them may be, but certainly not all of them."

At the conclusion of Cllr Gledhill's interview, Ms Nine then spoke to flats resident Rob Gordon and asked him what he thought. He responded: "I don't believe a word of it. That is frightening.

"We've had no talks about the blocks being pulled down. What we are living in now is unacceptable."

Asked if he wanted the flats made habitable, he said: "It don't make no sense saying they are going to pull the blocks down when they are repairing them.

"Nothing has been discussed at any of the meetings down there, that the blocks were going to be pulled down. I don't understand where this has come from."

Asked what condition his flat was in, Mr Gordon, who had featured in a previous BBC Essex feature on the state of the flats, said: "We've got mould in two of the rooms. We have had the maintenance come out to try and patch the rooms up but one of the walls fell down which had to be replastered and one room they have not even touched.

"This is what we are living in now."

Ms Nine asked him: "What's your reaction to Cllr Gledhill saying you might be in the current block of flats for years?"

He said: "That's not the right answer, it could be five to ten years. That don't make no sense. He's saying they've done their life expectancy of 25 years but they are 40 years old but now he says they can do another ten years

"That don't make no sense."

Asked 'What's the solution?' he added: "To get the right answers. Get them fixed. It's going to take time. The flats are okay but it's what they have done to them outside.

"They have caused this problem by taking all of this cladding away.

"There was a problem which was manageable but since they have taken the insulation off and the cladding and basically left it bare, it's just going to get worse.

"One of the solutions they tried to do is to get the mould guys in to treat the mould, wipe it down and repaint it or strip it back to where it's got to go to and try and fix it that way.

"But with these mould and damp spoors they are in the air, they could be on your materials, your clothes, the back of the wardrobe, your bed. So the only way you are going to get rid of it is by absolutely gutting the flat. Emptying everything. And that's not what's happening."

Grays Riverside ward councillor, Labour's Martin Kerin, was also interviewed on the programme and he too said he was surprised at some of Cllr Gledhill's comments, particularly since there had been no formal word from the council about even considering demolition of the south Grays flats.

He said: "The resident is telling the truth, He's not heard of it, I've not heard of it. There's no concrete plan for this, there's no report to the housing overview and scrutiny committee, there's no plan for cabinet.

"What I think is happening is that they are trying distraction techniques to distract from the appalling way in which these blocks have been managed, the botched refurbishment which incidentally was nothing to do with bolts and cladding, it was to do with the fact that the cladding was taken off and they hadn't measured the windows properly and now they have had to go back to the drawing board, redesign windows and they can't put the cladding back on until the windows have been redesigned.

"The whole programme was meant to be finished by May of this year and we probably won't even get the windows until then.

"So, I think residents like Rob Gordon, who I know personally as I have been working with him as a resident on this, are looking on this with a very healthy dose of scepticism.

"The idea that an administration that in six years hasn't actually come up with a plan that has had any spades in the ground is going to decant over 300 families from tower blocks into new properties that there is no report, no plan for. All we have is a series of press releases; It's simply not good enough."

Ms Nine asked: "Where are these properties, if 300 families are going to be moved out as these are pulled down, do we know where they will be?"

Cllr Kerin answered: "Exactly. This is the problem with this administration and the way they do things. They release press releases when they want to distract from what's going on.

"Even in Cllr Gledhill's prerecording that he did, he optimistically said they might do 93 to 94 new flats in the civic offices.

"Firstly there's no plan for that, there's literally just a press release for it, but even if we took him at his word, even if he managed to stretch to a 100, you are then looking at 200 families who have got nowhere to go, to decant to.

"Obviously, Cllr Gledhill would have been aware of the maths of this and that there are over 300 families in the six tower blocks in my ward. He also mentioned the tower blocks in Blackshots, so that's more families as well and the only thing he could say was we are looking to build 80-to 90 odd flats in the current civic offices.

"If I was a resident in the six tower blocks I represent that wouldn't be filling me with confidence."

Asked what needs to be done 'for the residents', Cllr Kerin said: "Firstly there needs to be a comprehensive and competent plan to actually deal with the mould that's happening.

"Ever since the cladding came down, the residents I represent have been suffering from really bad mould, from cold, and lots of problems that didn't happen before the cladding came off.

"And as Mr Gordon says, he is not happy with the way the mould treatments are going and quite frankly I am not either because too many residents are coming back to me and telling me that it's not being cleared the way it should be.

"And then secondly there needs to be the actual refurbishment of the tower blocks done in a clear and competent way.

"If the leader of the council isn't aware that it's a problem with the windows rather than bolts then that's another issue because it's being led by someone who is not on top of the detail of this.

"The immediate thing is, our residents' properties need to be made habitable."

Asked who was responsible for measuring the windows by Ms Nine, who added: "It's not your job to get up there and measure the windows", Cllr Kerin concluded: "I wish I had, it seems like a simple job doesn't it? To measure windows and say OK, we're taking the cladding off and these are the windows, this is what needs replacing.

"The basics are not being done right and that why residents who are struggling with mould every day hear, 'don't worry, sit tight and in five to ten years we might have some new flats for you', I can understand why they are not believing what they are hearing.

"They are going through hell at the moment and unfortunately the interview you had with the leader of the council has neither filled me nor residents with any kind of confidence that this is going to et resolved any time soon."

The interviews on Ms Nine's show on BBC Radio Essex will be available for the next 28 days via this link and then commence 3 hours and 10 minutes into the programme.