Tenants in dangerous homes after failed regeneration
BBCCherise tells me she has finally left Northam Road and she couldn't be happier to have a new place to live.
The 21-year-old had been sleeping on the living room floor of her Southampton home next to a large hole where the wood had rotted away. She says: "I used to wake up and just cry."
But her former neighbours are still at the mercy of the company landlord which owns almost 100 properties on a single road.
Many of the people I spoke to are vulnerable; some were homeless in the recent past.
Some say they are living without heating, gas or electricity.
Following a months-long investigation by BBC South, we can reveal how one landlord took control of Northam Road, let unsafe flats to vulnerable people, and seemingly misled Southampton City Council in 2012 into paying a grant for regeneration work in the area.
One former tenant, Ray Huggins, questioned why the council did not check whether these properties were safe and suitable for habitation before people moved in.
"Most people are on social security around here - [the council] are paying the rent money," he said.
"Shouldn't they really come out and see if the places are fit enough to live in?"
The BBC has tried various methods to contact the company, and the person that we believe controls it day-to-day, but there has been no response.
Northam Road, just outside Southampton city centre was once a bustling antiques quarter.
But after being cut off by a dual carriageway it slowly slipped into decline.
Now the majority of the premises stand empty and behind the attractive shop fronts are flats in disrepair.
In an exclusive interview, the city council revealed it is in the process of trying to acquire a number of properties on the road in lieu of unpaid council tax.
The council acknowledged there had been failure to protect tenants from the company landlord, Gray's Developments Ltd, over the last two decades.
It said by acquiring the properties, they hoped to take control of the situation and improve the standard of housing for tenants.
Tenants like Cherise.
She had been living alone in her flat on Northam Road for two-and-a-half years when I met her in February.
She found herself living there after leaving the care system.
One night, she woke up to a leak in her bedroom roof.
"It was dripping mouldy water, it smelled horrific, straight onto my mattress," she said.
After that, she slept on a mattress on her cramped living room floor for months, near to where another water leak had sprung. "That just flooded through my kitchen, and my flooring is wood chip, so that rotted away with all the water."
One day, when trying to hop over the rotted floor, her leg went straight through the wood, sending splinters into her skin.
She says she fell about 2ft (0.6m) through the floorboards and wasn't able to use her kitchen or cook for a year, forcing her to live on takeaways and other ready-made food.
"I'm not on a lot of money, I'm on Pip (Personal Independence Payments) and Universal Credit - so when that ran out, for the rest of the month I wasn't able to eat," she said.
Knowing other tenants had struggled to keep warm in winter, I asked her if her heating works.
"I don't have heating. I don't even have a radiator," she said, "it's absolutely freezing".
Wilson Bennett runs a small housing advice charity with an office on the road.
He told me the properties he'd been to see weren't fit for purpose and the landlord "has, in my opinion, put every tenant in these properties at risk".
The council has issued 35 improvement notices to the landlord, the first in 2001, including:
- 15 for serious threats to health and safety
- 6 for missing smoke or carbon monoxide alarms
- 4 for vermin or other pests
- 2 for properties found to be unfit for human habitation
The council said that the notices were "generally complied with, after much council involvement", but before any legal action was taken.
Tenants and former tenants I spoke to said they were living without basic amenities, or in rat-infested buildings, for months at a time.
According to Companies House, the official director of Gray's Developments Ltd is Ms Louise Russell - but BBC South has seen evidence that suggests her long-term partner, Mr Ian Loveridge, is in day-to-day control of the company.
Ms. Russell was contacted for comment, but we did not receive a response.
In the early 2000s, Southampton City Council granted Mr Loveridge £760,000 in two parts to restore some of the Northam Road properties.
But according to an internal council document from 2007, he managed money poorly and failed to complete works on one side of the street, although works on the other side were completed after significant delay.
The document stated: "There were clearly signs of bad financial management, and despite being repeatedly told of the issues, he continued to inappropriately collate financial documentation."
The council then sued him to get some of the money back - but ultimately settled out of court.
The document also highlights a "lenient approach" taken toward Mr Loveridge by council officers and questions whether adequate checks were carried out on him.
Despite that report, in 2012 the council granted £138,000 to Gray's Developments Ltd, where Mr Loveridge described himself as the operation's manager.
He met with the council multiple times to ask for that grant money to be released.
At that time, the council officers believed a man named Cassian Gray owned the company.
But Mr Gray did not hold any shares of the company and was not a controlling party.
The registered owner was Mr Loveridge's long-term partner, Ms. Russell, who he lives with.
The council told me it did not know whether appropriate checks had been carried out on the company at the time.
"It was not a good decision and it has resulted in a worsening of the street's environment - I'm not going to defend that," said Councillor Sarah Bogle, cabinet member for economic development, who represents the area.
Mr. Gray was contacted for comment but did not respond.
The council began a legal process in October 2024 to try to shut down the company and recover many years of unpaid council tax.
But in April that process was paused when the landlord and its lenders asked for more time to find an alternative solution.
The council has now appointed an agent to negotiate with the landlord to acquire the properties on the road.
It says if there is no progress it will take the matter back to court.
Bogle said the power of the council to enforce these matters had been limited by current legislation.
"We can't just railroad in, we have to go through due process. It's quite rare, this level of disengagement," she said.
Based on this landlord's pattern of behaviour I asked why it had not been banned from renting out properties.
"I don't know," said Bogle, "we probably should have, but we haven't done that."
Asked whether the council had failed to protect tenants on the road, she added: "We have tried to protect them, we have tried to intervene.
"There is failure there, I accept that. I'm not going to say everything's perfect, because it's not."
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this story you can contact BBC Action line here.
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