A council estate marred by "relentless" flytipping, burned-out houses and vandalism has been described as similar to living in "Beirut" by its residents.
The Primrose Court estate in Huyton, Liverpool, made headlines after a video taken three years ago, describing it as a 'sh*thole' was posted to Tiktok last week and viewed over 5 million times.
Today little has changed from the scenes in the video, which show windows and doors smashed in or boarded up, burned out houses with the roof missing and enormous piles of trash - some of which has allegedly been there for years.
The estate is considered unadopted land by Knowsley Council who say they "can't afford" to step in, after developers failed to finish construction of the road and street lighting after they went bust in 2006.
Now residents, who are forced to provide their own street lights, have accused the council of being "too scared" to step in because of trouble from outsiders, who relentlessly fly-tip the street.
One resident who has lived on Primrose Court for four years with his young daughter said outsiders prey on the unadopted street - knowing that without council supervision there will unlikely be consequences for their crimes.
He said: “The smashed out windows and burned down houses have been there for years.
"It's outsiders coming in dumping their rubbish, setting fires in the street and fighting.
“If you come again next week it won’t look like this because we’ll have all pitched together to clean it up, but it won’t be long before they come back and dump more rubbish.
“Some of the rubbish has been here for years. I think the council needs to do something because that’s the real problem. Nobody owns the street.
“Of course it bothers the residents, we don’t want to come out and look at the street like that or come out and see mess everywhere."
But Knowsley Councillor Ken McGlashon claims the problems lie with the landlord who he says told the council and Primrose Court residents at a meeting "we treat you like s**t because you live in a s**thole".
He claims the council has suffered a £100 million cut to its budget by the government leaving it unable to "pick up the bill" to fix the estate after the developer failed to "hold up their end of the deal".
Coun McGlashon said: "It’s not a council matter because we don’t own the property.
“It must be horrible for the poor people, I feel sorry for them but what the hell can you do if the developer doesn’t do their job and the council can’t afford to pick up the bill.
“This is a quote from the landlord when we met with them; “we treat you like s**t because you live in a s**thole”. That's the quote from the landlords themselves."
But the majority landlord of Primrose Court has furiously refuted the claim adding that the council has refused to help and is even asking residents for council tax - despite having no involvement in the estate’s maintenance.
Colin Bell, managing director of A1 Properties, is the acting landlord of 12 properties in the close, which has 24 houses in total.
Seven of those are derelict and the remaining five others are privately owned.
Mr Bell claims that at a meeting with the council in September 2019, council workers agreed that they would initially cover a £55,000 bill to finish the street lights and road, the cost of which would have been repaid by A1 Properties in full over 2-4 years.
But he adds that since that meeting, nothing has been done.
Mr Bell said: "We have over 400 house and 90 per cent of our problems come from Primrose Court.
"We were quoted £55,000 over two and half years ago to put the lighting in and do the road which would have made all the difference.
“The council are saying they can’t afford it but they’re wrong, we were going to pay the council back for those works. I don’t know how a council can’t find £55,000.
Dismissing the councillor’s claims that he ever described the tenants as ‘s**t’, Mr Bell said: “That is an absolute load of rubbish, we are the only landlord there and I certainly haven't had any meeting with any councillor and said our tenants are s**t.
“I think the council has every right to take over those properties and I don’t know why they haven’t done it because they’re short of properties to rent out, they have people on the housing waiting list, and they have these properties that they could have easily taken over… but they haven’t done it.”
A Knowsley Council spokesperson said: “Knowsley Council did not build the properties at Primrose Court and has never owned them. All of the properties are privately owned.
“Many of the issues at Primrose Court arise because the development was built by two separate privately owned companies – both of which went into liquidation without completing the work on site and without meeting the planning conditions for the developments. This meant that the usual processes for adopting the highway, installing street lighting etc could not be followed. The current property owners appear to be expecting the Council to use a considerable amount of public money to complete a privately owned development.
“The Council has been in regular dialogue with the homeowners and landlords of properties in Primrose Court since initial issues arose in the area. A number of Council services, including Housing, Highways, Environmental Health, and Crime & Communities, have worked with homeowners and landlords to identify solutions to the issues on site, try to identify sources of funding, and agree a collaborative approach to tackling the issues that are evident.
“For example, the Council met with some of the owners to discuss co-funding highways and infrastructure improvements to bring the road up to adoptable standards. At that meeting, the owners who attended agreed - in principle - to co-fund this work. Unfortunately, some of the other owners who did not attend that meeting subsequently refused to agree to contribute their shares, which would be required to progress the adoption of the road under a Private Streetworks Agreement. The Council has established how much the work would cost should an agreement ever be reached, but these costs are only going to continue to increase as time passes due to the poor original construction of the road by the developers.
“Unfortunately, the Council is not in a position itself to fund all of the work which is required on site. Over a ten-year period, the Knowsley Council has been one of the hardest hit local authorities in the country by Government funding cuts – the Council’s budget has been cut by 50% and it has had to find £100m worth of savings. Funding works to a privately-owned development would not be appropriate, particularly in that context.
“In response to the specific comments made by Mr Bell of A1 Properties, the Council has never agreed to temporarily cover the cost of street lighting or highways works. We have offered to provide support in other ways such as advising on the specification of materials and construction methods, but we have never agreed to cover the cost of the works, temporarily or otherwise.
The suggestion that the Council is “too scared” to finish the street lighting is completely untrue – We have simply never agreed to do that work. Council services regularly visit Primrose Court to provide a range of services, such as waste collections, social care, education, housing support, street scene, and environmental health. Our Crime and Communities team has secured funding to install CCTV, once other improvement works have been completed. Just like anybody else in Knowsley, residents pay Council Tax because they access a very wide range of Council services. The difference for residents in Primrose Court is that they have bought or rented houses in a development which was never finished.
“We take action against any reported incidents of fly tipping including removal of rubbish and working with our partners and the local community to identify those responsible and pursue enforcement action. In addition, Merseyside Police continue to patrol the area and has conducted a number of search warrants.
“Despite the very clear challenges, we continue to look at solutions to tackle the issues being experienced. The standards at Primrose Court are not acceptable and we remain committed to working with the owners on collaborative solutions to resolve the issues for all concerned.”
