‘It’s miserable’: London tower residents fear disaster with post-Grenfell scaffolding still up

It’s a sunny day with bright blue skies in north London, but you wouldn’t know that in Natasha Dyett’s flat. Most of the rooms are consumed in shadow, while her teenage son’s bedroom is almost completely dark, apart from a few slits of light coming through the window.

She lives in Archway Heights, a nine-storey block of flats that has been covered in scaffolding for more than six years for cladding works that still haven’t started.

The building’s residents say the scaffolding is making life a misery by blocking natural light from entering their homes, especially in places where metal sheets have almost entirely covered whole windows.

Others are unable to open windows that have been obstructed by the wooden and metal structure outside. “It’s miserable, it’s like we’re living in darkness,” said Dyett, a 52-year-old market trader living on the third floor.

“My son is always in his room and I worry about him getting no natural light. Sometimes, when I go outside, the sun hurts my eyes because I spend so much time here in the dark.”

Next to a Covid-era sign about social distancing, a notice outside the building states a scaffolding licence was given from 6 March 2020 to 6 August 2026 – another notice taped above it shows that licence has now been extended by a further 12 months.

The block’s residents are among thousands of people across the country bearing the cost of delays by the building safety regulator (BSR) to approve construction works required by post-Grenfell building safety rules.

The regulator has said “complex, older external remediation cases” are taking the longest to sign off and that, in this case, it has been hampered by an “invalid” application.

The building is owned and run by Places for People, the UK’s biggest housing association. It contains seven social rent flats and 18 shared ownership properties targeted for London’s key workers.

Dyett said she lives in fear about what would happen if the scaffolding caught on fire. In 2024, a tower block in Dagenham that was covered in scaffolding for ongoing cladding remediation works burned down, with an investigation later finding the scaffolding had caused the fire to spread.

“I’m sitting in here afraid because it’s all wrapped in netting and it just takes one idiot to go up there and do something and this block will be alight,” she said. “I try not to think too deeply because I get so scared thinking about it.”

The scaffolding has also created serious security problems, with rough sleepers repeatedly climbing up the structure to enter the building through windows.

In July, Dyett woke up at midnight to find a man standing directly outside her third-floor bedroom window. “It was terrifying – he was just standing there watching me and even after I shouted at him to go he still stood there,” she said. She said she reported the incident to the police but was unable to get CCTV footage from Places for People to support her statement.

Residents also said someone used the scaffolding to get on the roof, where they removed a skylight, meaning water now enters the building every time it rains.

Dwayne Lewis, 50, who has lived in the building for four years, said the scaffolding has caused constant issues and there is frustration that alarms that are supposed to sound if people go on it are not working.

Up on the sixth floor, he’s not as affected by the lack of light as his neighbours on the lower levels, but says the wait for works to start is frustrating. “Service charge has gone up year on year and the rent has gone up year on year. Yet we’re still in a place where there is no line in the sand where that cladding is going to be replaced, just an ongoing cost that is a fire risk, a security risk,” he said.

“We all got our hopes up a few months back because some workers came and we thought work was starting – it turned out the netting had just been up there for so long it had become battered and they were replacing it. That was it.”

Residents have begun working with community union Acorn to demand action from Places for People. They want the scaffolding secured to prevent vandalism, the alarms fixed, the metal panels covering bedroom windows removed, and better communication about progress with the works.

Earlier this year, the union helped them secure an increase on the £250 bi-annual compensation payments they receive for the scaffolding being there. “It’s just an absolute nightmare for them, they’ve been really neglected for such a long time,” said Acorn organiser Dan Newcombe.

A Places for People spokesperson said: “The challenges at Archway Heights are complex, multifaceted and will take time to resolve, causing understandable frustration for customers.

“This work cannot begin until we receive approval from the building safety regulator, which has taken far longer than we anticipated.”

They added that CCTV was “in place on the scaffold and is triggered by movement. It has been inspected and confirmed as operational, and an alarm system is currently being progressed”.

A spokesperson for the BSR said: “This complex case was originally submitted to BSR in April 2024 and was invalidated. A subsequent application was made in January 2025 and has required several requests for further information and ongoing engagement with the applicant for them to be able to demonstrate compliance with building regulations.”