Whistleblowers at Merton’s biggest social housing group have blamed its "terrible repairs service" on a culture of bullying, poor practice and bad management.

Two former customer services assistants and two former surveyors at Circle Housing Merton Priory (CHMP) independently contacted the Wimbledon Guardian after reading another whistleblower’s allegations published last month.

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They were all working at the company’s Morden headquarters in the past two years.

One former surveyor said: "Every job I attended Circle’s name was mud. The level of disarray was bad. Complaints were plentiful.

"All front line staff were suffering. Why? Process implemented by managers."

He said the turnover of staff was high with stressed staff leaving or being dismissed if they raised concerns about poor practice in the company.

CHMP took on about 200 members of staff from Merton Council when more than 9,000 homes were transferred to the housing association in 2010.

It refused to confirm how many staff members it employs, nor how many had left in the past two years.

Another whistleblower, who dealt with phone complaints on the customer services team, said management pressure to answer more phone calls, including repeated shouting across the office, drove her to a mental breakdown.

Faced with hundreds of calls from angry tenants every day, she said often from residents threatening suicide, the employee was subscribed anxiety medication by her GP.

She was also assessed by a nurse as suffering from work-related stress.

The nurse issued a series of recommendations to CHMP in an occupational health report, including that it should provide extra support and training.

The whistleblower said: "None of the recommendations on the report were followed through.

"One of the managers embarrassed me by discussing my health problems in front of other members of staff. I raised this with HR but they didn’t do anything.

"They bullied me further until they took the job away from me."

She was dismissed one month after the report was given to her managers.

Asked to respond to these allegations a CHMP spokesman refused to provide any information, saying the company would not comment on matters affecting individual employees.

The former customer services assistant also said she was aware of contractors being paid for work which had not been completed and said she raised her concerns on a number of occasions with managers, who failed to act.

The employee, who said she was now happily employed at another housing association, added: "I would love to see them closed down and replaced for the residents of Merton as they are ruining their lives. They should be closed down."

Independent auditors Rand Associates has recently been appointed by CHMP to investigate allegations of contractors over-charging for work, or charging for incomplete work, in response to fraud claims published by the Wimbledon Guardian last month.

Mark Anderson, CHMP’s regional director of property services, said: "We are working closely with our contractors to improve our repairs and maintenance service and have made a number of positive changes, including recruiting additional staff and using fewer sub contractors.

"These improvements are already beginning to have a positive impact for our residents - our latest figures show that 95% of repairs were completed to agreed timescales over a three week period.

"However, we are not complacent and improving our repairs service remains a top priority."