Looking out your bedroom window onto a building site can’t be ideal, but this is life for more than 600 people living on an estate in South Wimbledon.

The High Path estate is one of three in Merton that will be demolished to make way for 2,800 new homes.

The Eastfields and Ravensbury estates in Mitcham are also part of the regeneration plans.

But residents are still living in the estates and will continue to while work goes on, putting up with whatever noise and disruption that brings.

More than 200 of the new properties are earmarked for existing homeowners to get a new home at no additional cost on a full freehold or leasehold basis. Social tenants are also set to be moved into new flats as part of the scheme.

Cypren Edmunds has been a social tenant there for more than 20 years.

He moved to Marsh Court as a single dad in 1998 and a few years later married.

In the early noughties his two bedroom flat was home to the couple and their four children.

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He said at this time there were a lot of problems with the home including damp and condensation from the overcrowding.

Now he lives alone in the flat and will be in the first block to move into a brand new building.

But Mr Edmunds is concerned that the homes they will be offered will not be the same size.

“I personally think that the wool has been pulled over people’s eyes,” said Mr Edmunds who is chairman of the High Path Residents Association. 

“We were given the opportunity to go on tours of other estates that Clarion have developed with PRP architects.

“My concern is that in terms of the materials, new buildings tend to not last as long.”

Mr Edmunds said he and other residents have started to lose faith in Clarion as he feels the housing association has not been keeping up with repairs and maintenance.

“Their reputation isn’t good and it has got worse,” he added.

“The main contentious issue from the residents is that they don’t want Clarion to deliver it.

“We have to live with this landlord who just doesn’t deliver.”

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On a visit to the estate Mr Edmunds showed the fire doors which were installed in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

But he is concerned that if there was an emergency residents would have trouble opening the doors.

He said on his floor there are a few young single mums and an elderly woman who would have difficulty getting out if there was a fire.

A Clarion spokesman said the company is aware of residents’ concerns and the company is arranging for repairs. 

But Mr Edmunds, who works as a music producer, is not reassured by the company’s promises.

“If they can’t even do the most basic of things, given what happened at Grenfell, it really scares me,” he added. 

So, what do Clarion have to say?

A Clarion Housing spokesman said: “We are investing £1 billion to transform three neighbourhoods across the London Borough of Merton. The project – which is one of the capital’s most ambitious and complex of its type – will deliver around 2,800 new homes as well as boosting jobs and the local environment.

“At High Path, we have achieved planning consent for the first 134 homes and have already started clearing the site to enable building work to begin shortly. The first homes at High Path will be ready in 2021.

“We are ensuring that every new home will be at least the same size, although the majority of homes will be larger. Plus every home will have private outdoor amenity space such as a garden, balcony or roof terrace – currently only one third of homes on High Path have this.

“The new homes are designed by some of the UK’s leading architects and are being built to last for generations to come.”

The spokesman added that repair work is still being carried on properties, adding: “We are still carrying out urgent, emergency and routine repairs and decisions on planned works are made on a case by case basis.”