The ‘Nido’ redevelopment of the old NatWest towers on the Pentonville Road has not been without controversy.  This website has covered the loss of 100 year old trees, the self parodying promotional material and the un-liklihood of completing the development before tenants move in.  Now about 800 students are living there they are mightily hacked off that, surprise surprise the development isn’t finished. 

Nido’s interior is quite remarkable a rather beautiful Ikea imperialist style and the rooms are tiny but well designed.  The people who run the building are doing their best, but it simply wasn’t finished and trying to cope with normal snagging problems with 800 residents must be a nightmare.  JG Ballard covered this sort of thing in his masterpiece on vertical living – High Rise –

‘The building seems to give its well-established tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: swimming-pools, its own school, a supermarket, high-speed elevators. But at the same time, the building seems to be designed to isolate the occupants from the larger world outside, allowing for the possibility to create their own closed environment. 

Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty annoyances over neighbours begin to escalate into an orgy of violence. ‘

Our student neighbours are now trying to bring BBC Watchdog into the frame, complaining, probably rightly that the expensive experience does not match up to what was advertised in the videos and promotional bumf.  A more direct route would be to start with the Council – for instance trading standards at first for the contractual issues and then even building control.  There is also the Housing Ombudsman Service. Any suggestions on how we could help our neighbours advance their case gratefully received as a comment here or make them direct on the Nido facebook site.  There is an excellent article here at the Shelter site