EXCLUSIVE: Residents at Labour-run Council Pensioner Block Allege Health and Safety Breaches By Council's Contractors

 

Labour-run Council Fails To Protect Pensioners

Labour-run Southampton City Council has faced allegations of health and safety breaches from residents of Rozel Court. The allegations relate to a lack of management of contractors working at the site. 

Independent Network Redbridge Ward candidate for the 7th May elections, Andrew Pope, has acted to help residents.

Rozel Court is two large blocks of pensioners and vulnerable people in the Channel Islands Estate in the north-west of our City.

Andrew says:

 

Andrew Pope with Election Board for Redbridge Ward
Image: Southampton Independents (SC)

 

"I was contacted after residents read my letters and leaflets that I had delivered to both blocks.

I started to investigate the allegations and spoke with several residents at Rozel Court. With a local resident, I delivered a letter to all flats to listen to residents' concerns.

The Police were involved in some of the allegations. I was quite concerned. These are elderly residents feeling at risk. It's not right.

I also spoke with Council officers from different departments, and the contractors on site.

I expressed my disappointment at some attempts to pass the buck. As a campaigner over 20 years, I take a very dim view of buck-passing and have ways of dealing with it. Officers of the Council know this and the contractors found this out very quickly.

As I was trained to do many years ago, I cross-checked the allegations made and tried to get all sides to the situation. That is fair to all sides and natural justice in our country.

I now have a clearer picture of the situation and am now pressuring the Council officers to improve the situation for residents. 

I am getting some co-operation from officers and the contractors now.

I will continue to do so, until I feel that residents' concerns are addressed.

Many Council residents complain that the Council does everything online and does not respond.

So to show how it can be done better than the Council, I printed my updates and with Southampton Independents colleagues, delivered an update by hand to residents.  

If elected on 7th May, I will have more powers to do so. Please vote for me and encourage everyone else who has a vote in Redbridge Ward to vote for me too."

 

 

 

Andrew Pope Calls on Labour Cabinet Member for Housing Councillor Andy Frampton To Be Sacked

 

Andrew Pope on BBC South Today when a councillor
Photo: Southampton Independents

Andrew Pope says: 

"Council tenants and leaseholders have had enough. The elderly and vulnerable were deprived of their right to vote by Thornhill Labour Councillor Andy Frampton's failure to fix the lift in Milner Court. 

Yes, it's true, because I saw it and heard it including residents struggling with the stairs and others unable to go out to vote. It was very upsetting for me because I fight for democracy in Southampton and fight for residents. I have written about it on this website.

Firefighters and residents were put at risk by Councillor Frampton's wilful ignorance of the fire safety concerns I raised with him about Shirley Towers. I had to do his job for him, and I am not even currently a councillor!

He also ignored my repeated calls over the last two years for him to fix the widespread damp and mould in Council flats and houses.

Enough is enough. So I've called for the Labour Cabinet Member for Housing Andy Frampton to be sacked by the Leader of the Council, Labour's Shirley ward councillor Alex Winning.

At the same time, I've also reminded him that his own seat in Shirley is up for election in May, where both by-elections have been lost by Labour. Will he be "winning" in Shirley in May? I will try to make sure that he doesn't.

 

Thornhill Labour Councillor Andy Frampton
Photo: Southampton City Council

 

I've written to Councillor Winning today. I've also informed the Returning Officer, because the result of this election has been affected by the Labour-run Council's failures to protect residents and their right to vote."

 

Andrew Pope in Shirley Towers in 2026
Photo: Southampton Independents

Redbridge Towers in 2017
Photo: Southampton Independents

Daily Echo April 2017 After Redbridge Towers Fire
Photo: Southampton Independents

Shocking Attitude of Southampton Labour Housing Bosses Towards Council Tenants

 

Labour Cabinet Member for Housing Cllr Andy Frampton
Photo: Southampton City Council

Southampton Independents stands up for residents. We stand up for Council tenants and leaseholders.

Since 2017, we have consistently held the Labour-run Council to account, and also for the year that the Tories had control of the Council. Labour or Tory, same old story, residents said to us. Because Labour is no better than the Tories. 

Co-Founder of Southampton Independents Andrew Pope continues to hold the Council to account. When he got hold of a Council Internal Audit report, he asked questions of the Council's Labour Housing boss Councillor Andy Frampton. As reported previously, Failing Frampton did not reply.

So Andrew asked again, and also asked about fire safety concerns of residents of Shirley Towers and Milner Court, which is two council blocks for older people next door.

Here is the full reply from Frampton, when offered to reply for a SECOND time:

"No, I didn't miss your email. I don't reply to other political groups who will only use answers and explanations as a way to twist the truth and information to their own narrative. Please direct any resident who has any concerns about fire safety or problems with damp & mould to the appropriate department who will help." 

Andrew Pope says:

Andrew Pope on BBC TV
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

"Residents, tenants and leaseholders have had to come to me to help them, because the Council itself has not addressed their concerns and worries over heating, fire safety, damp and mould and more. They feel ignored, so I am trying to help them.

Councillor Frampton was due to meet with tenants representatives meeting on Monday. I attended it at Shirley Towers. He was not there. Why? So I have raised their concerns directly with officers, who were helpful.

Tenants and officers of the Council deserve better than Southampton Labour. I will continue to stand up for them.  

I have written to local media to ask them to help holding Councillor Frampton and the Labour-run Council to account. That is how democracy in Southampton is supposed to operate. 

The big political parties let everyone down. They do not deserve any power in our City."

   

Fourteen Years of Failure - Southampton Labour Housing Councillor Failing Frampton Refuses To Fix Council Tenants' Concerns

 

Failing Southampton Labour Housing Boss Andy Frampton
Photo: Southampton City Council

Councillor Andy Frampton admits fourteeen years of failure (minus one year of Tory failure*) by Labour on Southampton City Council housing. Last month, launching yet another "strategy" document after those before that failed Council tenants, he said:

'Sadly, too many in our city still fall short of the standard residents rightly expect.' 

On Sunday 1st February 2026, the day of the fire at the Southampton General Hospital (University Hospitals Southampton), Shirley campaigner Andrew Pope sent concerns of Shirley Towers residents over fire safety to the Labour Cabinet Member for Housing at the Council, Councillor Andy Frampton.

Tenants were unhappy that housing officers had failed to address their concerns over many issues:

• fire safety, including in Shirley Towers where firefighters died in 2010
• damp and mould across Southampton Council flats and houses
• energy equipment installed by the Council being faulty
• community rooms in council blocks being closed and 
• bed bugs.

So they approached Andrew Pope, who took up their concerns. 

Cllr Frampton flatly refused to answer their concerns, and we have his refusal in writing. It is unacceptable.

Shirley Towers residents told us, when we told them about Frampton's refusal, that he deserves to lose his Council seat. According to the Council website, his seat is up for election in May 2026. If you would like to stand against him, please get in touch with us. 

Andrew Pope says:

Daily Echo in 2017 Andrew Pope Quoted on Fire Safety at Redbridge Towers
Photo: Southampton Independents

 

"I had already tried to get Andy Frampton to address the serious damp and mould problems, but he did not respond.  

Tenants had already tried to get these problems addressed by Council officers, who supposedly answer to the failing Frampton. He should help but he refused.

It is no wonder that tenants find that too many of their problems are either ignored or not addressed properly by Labour-run Southampton City Council.

When even the housing boss fails to address the concerns, Council officers may think they can follow his lead of inaction, incompetence and failure.

Frampton himself has admitted in public his failings and the failings of the Labour-run Council. 

At a meeting in January 2026, after FOURTEEN years of failure after Labour took control of the Council, Frampton said:

'Sadly, too many in our city still fall short of the standard residents rightly expect.'

Labour has been in power in the Council since 2012. 

I resigned from Labour in 2015 and became an Independent councillor because I did not want to be part of a Labour Party that failed Redbridge, Maybush and Millbrook constituents. Labour has run them down and run Southampton down.

Being an independent means I work with residents without any political party between me and those I represent.

That's why I am standing to be a Councillor again. 

If elected, I will have some powers to compel officers to address tenants' concerns. 

And some of those officers may remember that I am not like Andy Frampton - I make sure officers do their jobs and serve tenants. I will be meeting with officers soon to keep up the pressure."

* The Conservatives took control of the Council for just one year between 2012-2026. Labour or Tory, same old story - it's still fourteen years of failure since 2012. And when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were in UK Government, they slashed Council funding and made it more difficult for councils to raise their own funding. Southampton Labour's former Council Leader Satvir Kaur MP said that she did not understand Council finances, and brought the Council to its knees. Labour, Lib Dem or Tory, same old story.

 

Andrew Douglas Pope on BBC South Today

 

Andrew Douglas Pope

EXCLUSIVE: EIGHT Years Later, Bad Landlord Southampton City Council STILL Failing on Damp and Mould

Campaigning for A Better Council

 

Southampton Independents began its campaign on fire safety in early 2017. During that campaign, we uncovered a whole raft of issues across Southampton on housing more generally. Many of these problems had been around for a while, and Council tenants were increasingly frustrated.

When we took BBC Radio 5 Live's investigative reporter Adrian Goldberg to the tower blocks in International Way in Weston, he was shocked. He filed this video, with Andrew Pope showing him around. 

As well as the fire safety issues, we observed damp and mould. This had previously been reported by tenants of Canberra House in International Way. As the Daily Echo reported, the Council had "vowed" to address the damp and mould, and the fire safety issues.

Yet eight years later, the Council's own report still shows "high risk" issues on damp and mould.

Southampton City Council's own Director of Housing has admitted that the Council is a bad landlord, quoted in writing in the Council's own report:

"Over the last few years, our performance relating to our housing landlord function has fallen below an acceptable standard. We must and will do better."

We have written to the Cabinet Member for Housing, Labour Councillor Andy Frampton, on several issues. We still have not received any response.

So now we are revealing more shameful information, from the Council's own reports that we have obtained, about damp and mould, to add to:

• the huge cost of empty properties and delays to fill the properties with tenants
• the Council's failure to deal with high risk fire safety failures, and 
• the change to Council policy to allow non-Southampton residents to go on the waiting list.

We quote directly from the Council's own report:

"The high risk exception was raised in relation to sample testing of 25 damp and mould cases establishing 8/25 did not include photographs alongside the surveyor’s findings, 6/25 did not have a surveyor report on file and for 10/25, testing was unable to evidence the authority contacting tenants to follow up on damp and mould issues."

To interpret this:

• 32% of damp and mould cases did not provide photographic evidence
• 24% had no surveyor report to provide evidence
• 40% had no evidence that the Council as landlord had even followed up with tenants on damp and mould issues
  

Campaigner Andrew Pope says: 

 

Daily Echo early 2017
on our fire safety campaign
quoting Andrew Pope

"We will try again to get answers from Councillor Andy Frampton, and have contacted the BBC and other media to ask that they cover this, as they have covered private sector damp and mould issues following the terrible deaths and illnesses caused by bad landlords.

It is also nauseating to see Southampton Labour MPs like Darren Paffey, who himself was approving housing spending in the Council Cabinet for years, focus in a recent BBC report by Emily Hudson on BBC South Today only on private sector blocks when his own Labour Council is still failing as a landlord.

It's selective representation and party political myopia when his job is to protect all his constituents from all bad landlords, including the Council."

 

Standing Up For Sotonians

Southampton Labour Councillors Abandon Prioritising Southampton People for Southampton Council Housing

 

Labour Fails on Council Housing

Do you think that Southampton council housing should be prioritised for Southampton people? 

We do, because Southampton residents do. 

Yet, just two weeks after Labour's shallow and wide General Election win, Southampton Labour councillors voted to allow people who live outside Southampton to get equal priority with Southampton people who live in Southampton.

How do we know what residents think? Because we are residents too and we've asked them about it.

When Independent Candidate Andrew Pope asked residents during the recent Shirley by-election (which the Liberal Democrat candidate won), residents agreed that Southampton residents should be prioritised for council housing over those that do not live here.

It would seem to be common sense, that those who have contributed to Southampton and who have local connections should receive something back for their loyalty to our City.

The Council Cabinet, composed entirely of Labour councillors, voted in July to water down the 10-year-long policy introduced in 2014 under Labour's Local Election Manifesto.

This Labour Manifesto was co-ordinated by Andrew Pope, a year before he resigned from the Labour Party in disgust at the performance of the Labour-run Council and its broken promises, including over its failure to build the council housing it promised in 2012. 

As reported here on the Southampton Independents website, Labour has built a paltry amount of council-owned housing, breaking another promise. It has had over a decade to do so.

 

Andrew Pope, speaking in 2017 to the BBC

 Andrew says:

"One of the Local Election Manifesto pledges in 2014 was to make the local connection essential for anyone wanting to go on the housing waiting list, which at the time was huge. And it still is huge at around 8,000 according to the Council.

I pushed for this policy to be a pledge for Labour because I had listened to local residents in the Maybush, Millbrook and Redbridge areas that I represented as a councillor who felt that people from outside Southampton were getting priority instead. And Southampton residents elsewhere felt the same, I had learned from listening to colleagues when co-ordinating the Manifesto.

I felt strongly that it was important to address this perception and to actually give priority to our own people. I made the case to my Labour colleagues at the time.

Sadly, there was resistance from some in the Southampton Labour group of councillors and also amongst Southampton Labour Party members. Some of them even called it a 'racist' policy.

But then some of them, especially the ones who have poor debating skills, used that word a lot when they could not make a coherent or reasoned argument, for example in the 2016 Council debate about the EU Referendum.

The policy is definitely not racist. It is about contribution to our City, including those who have paid council tax, and rewarding that commitment to our City by its residents. It is called the 'contributory principle' that the Liberal William Beveridge advocated for in his famous reports after World War II that led to the modern 'welfare state'.

I can exclusively reveal that a Freedom of Information request that I put in has confirmed that Southampton Labour councillors, and Southampton City Council itself under Labour rule, have capitulated to those in Southampton and Westminster who do not stand up for Southampton and its people.

Not only did they vote to water down the 'local connection' policy.

The Council's Freedom of Information response was that they did not know how often they enforced the local connection policy, because they did not have this information. 

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the Council have not been enforcing this policy, and all and sundry are allowed to get council housing.

Southampton people are not getting priority.

Even worse, according to the report of the Cabinet meeting by the Local Democracy Reporter, Jason Lewis, the Tories have gone along with the Labour Cabinet vote - what kind of opposition is this?

It is yet another broken promise by Labour and its councillors and another case of Labour or Tory and the same old story.

I have written to the Cabinet Member for Housing Cllr Frampton, and the Leader of the Council Cllr Fielker, asking for an explanation. I have also asked the Tory Group Leader Cllr Baillie why they support this policy u-turn."

OPINION: LABOUR COUNCIL GIVING PUBLIC LAND AWAY TO HOUSING DEVELOPERS AT BARGAIN PRICES AT CHRISTMAS WITH SPECIAL DEALS DONE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Yet ANOTHER Labour Robbery of Public Assets

 

  ... AND THE TORY COUNCILLORS APPLAUD LABOUR FOR FOLLOWING TORY POLICIES ON HOUSING! 

by Andrew Pope - Independent

Former Independent Councillor Andrew Pope

This is a really interesting timing of the Council's announcement, just before Christmas, that the Labour-run Council will be giving away public land to developers at bargain prices, including below the market rate. This is confirmed in the report that went to the Labour-run Cabinet of councillors on 20th December 2022. 

In the report approved by Labour's Cabinet, the option to sell all land at best market value was not recommended in the report. And the details are to be dealt with under what is called "exempt matters" which means that the public will not be able to see the details.

We have offered Southampton City Council the opportunity to comment on the proposals and answer our questions.

Why did they release this press release just before Christmas (copied below this article in case they decide to delete it*)? 

 

Labour's Withering Rose
in Southampton

It's almost like the PR lackeys at the Council, under the instruction of Council Leader Labour Councillor Satvir Kaur didn't want the public to know about giving land away to developers and not delivering value for council tax payers and local residents, which councils are required to do by law - and for good reasons. 

So it is interesting timing that they put the press releases out just before Christmas, hoping that nobody would notice. 

Residents have noticed and they are not happy about it.

Sweet deals for developers is what former Tory Housing Spokesperson Cllr Peter Baillie advocated for years, but Labour are doing it and carrying on Tory policies.

It's like residents say back to me now - Labour or Tory, same old story. 

Labour have broken their own promises. How do I know? Because I was in the Labour Party for ten years, including as a Labour councillor before I decided to become an Independent and quit Labour.

In the 2012 Labour Manifesto for the Council, and in public statement after public statement, Labour councillors including the Cabinet Member for Housing Councillor Warwick Payne pledged for council-owned homes, not giving the land to developers. 

But the Labour Council, which has controlled the Council for nine of the ten years since 2012 - and approaching ten years now, has failed to deliver those  council-owned homes over ten years and broke their pledges over housing. Now I have the stats to prove it, obtained directly from Southampton City Council. 

Not only did Labour fail miserably on council-owned homes. They also failed to live up to the 2012 Manifesto pledges which already used weasel words to deceive the public into voting Labour. 

How do I know? You can't see their pledges on the Labour Party's website because they have removed them. They do not want to be held to account for their failed promises. 

But fear not. I have copies. Why? Because I was a Labour councillor and I co-ordinated the 2014 Labour Manifesto. The first part of this process was auditing the delivery or not of the pledges from 2012. 

When I was doing this, I went to the Leader of the Council Simon Letts and told him that Cabinet members did not know their portfolios and did not know what the Council was spending millions of pounds of public money on. 

And those Cabinet members certainly did not want accountability for failing to meet the 2012 pledges. I suggested to those Cabinet members that they be sent to scrutiny to account for the pledges. They did not want that at all. I'm sure that you can work out why not, because they knew that they had not met many of the pledges.

One of the many reasons that I left Labour in 2015 and became an Independent councillor was Labour's failure to deliver the council homes that they promised. 

And even when I was a Labour councillor, I spoke up in the Council Chamber at Scrutiny meetings to criticise Councillor Warwick Payne as Cabinet Member for Housing, and that he did not have a grip on his officers to provide leadership to them. That was because I put residents first, not party loyalties.

Councillor Payne was eventually removed as Cabinet Member for Housing and replaced with none-other than the current Leader of the Council Councillor Satvir Kaur. Worryingly, Councillor Kaur is now Labour's preferred candidate to succeed Alan Whitehead as the Labour MP for Southampton Test, which is the constituency in the West of the City.

Let's not forget that it was Councillor Kaur who could not answer my questions in the Council Chamber about the millions of pounds of public money that she spent on the Arts Complex, instead of on essential public services. That's why we used the Labour Highwayman graphic on our leaflets. 

The Internal Audit Report
on the Arts Complex
That I Gave to the Echo

 

The graphic would just as easily apply to the Tory councillors too, because the only councillor opposed to the Arts Complex / Studio 144 millions was me. The Tories supported the profligate millions. 

I was the one councillor of forty-eight City councillors who challenged the Audit Committee and the Chief Financial Officer. I was the one councillor who took the information in the Internal Audit Report (see extract above) to the Daily Echo who put it on the front page, quoting the former Leader of the Council Simon Letts saying that he did not care why the Arts Complex was over-time and over-budget.

Councillor Kaur could not answer my questions about the millions. But Councillor Kaur did not replace Councillor Payne as Housing Cabinet Member until after he was the same Councillor who said that residents of tower blocks did not want sprinklers. I had it in writing and Cllr Payne's false claims are still on this website. 

Daily Echo April 2017
During Our Sprinklers Campaign

I said in early 2017, before the Grenfell disaster, that sprinklers save lives and it was a campaign that I led across Southampton to have them installed, exposing the failings of the Council to protect residents on fire safety - in the Daily Echo, on Wave 105 FM, BBC Radio Solent, ITV Meridian News and BBC Radio 5 Live. Sprinklers have saved lives and property in Southampton, including in Millbrook Towers in the ward where I used to be a councillor. 

New figures that I have obtained on what was actually delivered on fire safety by the Council and what is still to be delivered MANY YEARS after Shirley Towers and Redbridge Towers fires are however very concerning and we have published on that already, with more to come.

Now - thanks to figures obtained directly from officers of the Council - I have a whole lot more evidence on the Council's failures on housing - FOR TEN YEARS OF FAILURE ON HOUSING, by Councillor Payne and Councillor Kaur.

It really is just another case of Labour or Tory, same old story. Meanwhile, Southampton Independents will continue to stand up for residents and businesses in Southampton.

* Council press release, 20th December 2022

Southampton City Council approves first Affordable Housing Framework sites

Today (Tuesday 20 December) Southampton City Council approved the first set of council-owned sites to be transferred to Affordable Housing Providers as part of the new Affordable Housing Framework which was approved at Cabinet earlier this year

20/12/2022

This is one of the tools the council will use to ensure more affordable homes in the city which includes continuing to work towards the direct delivery of council homes.

The framework will allow the council to use its own land to address the significant need for affordable housing in Southampton and will provide the opportunity for development of social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership properties which will help people get onto the housing ladder and own a share in their home.

The first set of council-owned sites are either vacant sites, empty buildings or have an approved decommissioning plan in place meaning that delivery of the much-needed new homes can be achieved quicker. The first set of sites will provide an estimated total of up to 300 homes.

The council anticipates that several providers will be appointed and the framework ready to move forward early in 2023.

As of October 2022, there were a total of 7,508 households on the housing register with wait times ranging from 1 year and 4 months up to over 11 years. The council has set a target to increase the supply of affordable housing by 8,000 homes by 2040 which will help to reduce the wait times for those on the housing register.

Councillor Lisa Mitchell, Cabinet Member for Housing and the Green Environment, said: 

“We know that poor quality housing has a significant impact on residents’ health and wellbeing, which is why it is so important that we provide good quality affordable housing so our residents can achieve a high-quality life and we enable people to live independently for longer by supporting their mental and physical wellbeing.

“The new affordable housing framework will accelerate the delivery of new homes and help us work towards our commitment to providing at least 8,000 affordable homes by 2040.

“We will work with Affordable Housing Providers to build new homes and work in collaboration with partners to provide more affordable housing and build better, stronger and more resilient neighbourhoods that foster city pride”.