Once ranked England’s worst for damp and mould – how is West London council now doing?

Now four years after the dismal results, we look at some of the data and speak with residents about how the local government is faring.

Almost exactly four years ago, in October 2021, the Housing Ombudsman released a report that sparked outrage in a specific West London borough.

According to the Ombudsman’s report, the Labour-led Hammersmith and Fulham Council was the worst social landlord in the UK for damp and mould issues, with maladministration findings per 10,000 dwellings.

The council was also named the worst at processing complaints, with 142 landlords evaluated by the Ombudsman between April 2019 and March 2021. What followed was a mix of censure, apologies, and promises to act.

Conservative councillor Adronie Alford criticised the local authority of neglecting its constituents, telling a Full Council meeting in January 2022 that the rating was “outrageous and unforgivable”. She said:

“I hope that we never have such an appalling Ombudsman report about us ever again.” Cllr Lisa Homan, former Cabinet Member for Housing, stated at the same meeting that the council takes the findings “very seriously” and profoundly regrets the challenges that many of our people have had.

The council apologises, and I apologise, to all affected residents, and I want to assure them that the council is dedicated to resolving moisture and mould problems as quickly as possible.”

The LDRS has addressed damp and mould issues in the Hammersmith and Fulham estates, including West Kensington.

(Image by Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon) In May 2023, the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, took a step further and opened an investigation into Hammersmith and Fulham’s handling of complaints and repairs, citing “systemic failure”.

The inquiry, which examined conclusions in instances determined between May 29, 2023 and September 29, 2023, discovered flaws in the council’s strategy to responding to and resolving concerns.

The study published the following February included a number of recommendations, ranging from providing a clear process within the repairs policy describing how repair appointments will be managed to building a process to efficiently monitor compensation payments.

Mr Blakeway stated at the time that it was ‘encouraging’ to see some of the adjustments made by the council, and in a statement, the local authority cited efforts taken since the probe began.

Cllr Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler, the former Leader of the Conservative Opposition, stated that citizens had suffered and that the Ombudsman had correctly blamed the council.

This council pretends to be empathetic, but it is apparent they are not.” So, as we approach the four-year anniversary of the 2021 report, the LDRS wonders what has changed. What do the data show? And, most crucially, how do residents of some of the impacted estates feel about their properties?

The data

To gain a better picture of the statistics behind damp and mould claims in Hammersmith and Fulham, the LDRS requested updated data from the Housing Ombudsman on recent findings.

The Ombudsman’s 2021 report urged landlords to submit maladministration findings per 10,000 residences to provide a fair picture of performance.

The new data, which was supplied to the LDRS and covers condensation, damp, and mould findings between April 1 2023 and August 18 2025, instead lists values without regard to the number of houses. It also uses the phrase ‘findings’ rather than ‘determinations’, which was the metric in the 2021 report.

A spokeswoman for the Ombudsman noted that there may be many findings per determination and that the methodology has been revised to better reflect what it identifies. A second issue to note is that the year refers to the discovery rather than when each case began, which could have been some time ago.

According to Ombudsman data, Hammersmith and Fulham were not among the top ten worst landlords for condensation, damp, and mould over the time period covered.

The list does not identify where the council would have appeared in a comprehensive listing of all landlords.

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