THE tragedy of a grandmother crushed to death in a lift has marked a new low for the council's housing body Redbridge Homes.

While an official investigation into what happened has only just got underway, many tenants have no doubt that the council has a lot of questions to answer.

The full circumstances of what occurred in the Lambourne House block on Woodford Green's Orchard Estate are still to be uncovered.

Yet the seething anger on the streets of has been fuelled by the multiple witnesses who said the lift was clearly faulty, and the testimony from residents who said they had warned the council repeatedly about the block's crumbling state.

But whatever the outcome of the investigation by the Government and police, the horrific events of the early hours of Sunday morning, August 9, serve as the latest and most emotional outpouring of anger against Redbridge Homes in its beleaguered two-year history.

"ALL I'VE BEEN GETTING IS BROKEN PROMISES"

The body was first founded by the council in April 2007 under new Government guidelines.

At the time of its launch, management told the Guardian the body's main aim was to achieve the Government's two star rating standard - something it has still failed to do.

In April 2008 the Guardian reported the worries of Orchard Estate resident Laura Dawkins, the same woman who would witness her mother's death in a lift in the same block just over a year later.

At the time she told us how she was worried for her family's safety because of the block's crumbling and mouldy walls.

She said: "All I've been getting is broken promises for the last 11 months.

"They [Redbridge Homes staff] came round and had a look but they said they had even worse problems to deal with. Every morning I wake up and there's concrete in my bath and in the sink."

Cllr Thomas Chan, who was then cabinet member for housing, also admitted to the Guardian at the time that the "ideal" situation would be to tear down all council housing in the borough and rebuild it.

"REPAIRS WERE SUBSTANDARD"

In August 2008 we reported the outrage of residents living in Carlton Terrace, Wanstead.

There, two council tenants had a lucky escape when their ceilings collapsed due to mould.

The head of the local residents association said it had first warned the council about problems with the block in the 1970s.

In March 2009, we reported the ordeal of leaseholders and tenants at Copford Close in Woodford Bridge, who complained that repairs carried out by Redbridge Homes in their building were "substandard."

Then in June 2009 anger at the housing body reached a new peak, when it failed to get two stars in an inspection by the Audit Commission.

The failure meant the borough missed out on a whopping £39million Government grant for housing improvements, and hundreds of tenants were sent letters informing them repairs due to take place would be delayed.

Then in July 2009 Redbridge Homes was criticised for its delay in passing on a rent reduction to residents.

And only two weeks ago the body attracted further scorn when the Guardian revealed it had spent nearly three quarters of a million pounds on temporary management staff in the space of two years.

They refused to comment on claims by an insider that some temporary members of management staff were getting paid as much as £500 a day.

Staff at the body this week have remained tight-lipped in their headquarters in the Orchard Estate.

But today Redbridge Homes not only sits in the shadow of the estate's towers - it sits in the shadow of Christine Allen and the unanswered questions surrounding her untimely death.