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‘We’ve been told nothing’, say families on Essex estate built using RAAC

Exclusive: Council housing tenants on a Basildon estate built using RAAC say no one has ever flagged it as an issue

By Camille Corcoran and Ruby Lott-Lavigna
‘We’ve been told nothing’, say families on Essex estate built using RAAC
Large cracks can be seen in the walls of the homes built with RAAC | openDemocracy/Camille Corcoran
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Council housing tenants on an estate built using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) say they've been given no information about the safety of their homes.

The 18-home Knights estate in Basildon, Essex, was the first example of Siporex (another name for RAAC) being used for housing in the UK and is still standing.

Built in 1962, it now contains a mix of social housing and privately owned homes. When we visited, openDemocracy was shown examples of cracks in concrete on external walls by one tenant. She said: “There’s a metal bit sticking out and a massive crack and you can see through to the outside from our house. If we’re inside you can actually see daylight.”

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0