Leaseholder calls police after Hackney Council workmen remove her security gates

Gateless: Ann Courington outside her flat. Photograph: Benjamin Mortimer

When Ann Courington returned from the doctor one day to find her metal security gates being taken away in an unmarked van, she was so worried that she called the police.

“I came back and saw the gates had gone,” Ms Courington said. “There were these two guys hanging around with a van and I asked them ‘have you taken my gates?’

“They said they had them in the van but that they had come from Hackney Council. I reported it to the police, who gave me a crime number, but they said it was a civil matter.”

Ms Courington, a retired science teacher, has lived in her block of flats in Clapton for thirty years. She bought her flat under the Right to Buy scheme and installed the security gate following a burglary.

Hackney Homes, which manages the block, said they had sent several letters warning that the gates would be removed on safety grounds and that since the contractors were not entering Ms Courington’s property their workmen were not obliged to identify themselves.

A spokesman for Hackney Homes said: “We carried out a fire risk assessment which found that the metal gates put up across the communal balcony outside the property would delay anyone trying to get out or in if there was a fire or other emergency. The gates also blocked off communal areas and service pipes to the block.

“We are legally obliged to comply with our own fire risk assessments and guidance provided by our risk assessors.  The gates were removed by contractors working for Hackney Homes.”