A LABOUR councillor has hit back at the Conservative party for laying blame for a glut of poor-quality high-rise flats.

In an interview with the Independent on how long it would take to bring a fifth of the borough's housing stock up to standard, housing cabinet member Matthew Laban said last week: “Our predecessors saddled us with a lot of high-rises that are very costly to renovate with lifts that are very costly to run.”

However, housing scrutiny panel chairman Achilleas Georgiou said: “For a good part of the last seven years he, as cabinet member for housing, has been at the helm of council housing in the borough.

"Apart from eight years from 1994 to 2002, Enfield has been administered by the Conservatives since the
mid-Sixties. They have got to take responsibility for those years.

"For Matthew Laban to say they have inherited all those things is to wash their hands of them.”