Residents of Manchester tower block 'trapped' in flats for four days
Residents of a council owned tower block say they were left trapped in their homes for four days after a lift broke down.Elderly tenants and some with ‘serious mobility issues’ were unable leave their homes until it was fixed four days later, say furious neighbours.One of the lifts inside Humphries Court on Whitley Road in Collyhurst, north Manchester, broke down on Thursday, April 7, and was not repaired until Monday.The block has two lifts - one serving even-numbered floors, another serving odd-numbered floors - meaning residents on the floors affected by the lift outage were left stranded, despite a sting of complaints.
Anthony Ross, 58, who is looking after his mother Mary Ross, 84, following her stint in hospital, said: "It’s unacceptable.“Anyone that lives on the affected floors can’t get out, no fresh air. It got to Sunday afternoon, and my mum said she’d have to negotiate the stairs."
Ms Ross has 'serious mobility issues', and was desperate to leave her sixth floor flat for some exercise and fresh air on Sunday afternoon as advised by her physiotherapist to aid her recovery.But although Mr Ross contacted Northwards Housing - Manchester City Council's housing operations in the North of the city, he said it took days to resolve the breakdown.Mr Ross said: “The emergency repair centre were contacted on a number of occasions regarding the situation, and on Thursday afternoon, residents were told that an engineer would be out to fix the problem soon after 4pm.“They were again contacted on Friday, April 8, when the lift was still not working and the residents were told that engineers were waiting for a part, but the lift would be fixed before the weekend, even if it meant working through the night.”It wasn’t until Monday morning, at around noon, that Mr Ross said the lift was finally fixed.He claims this is the ‘third time’ the lift has broken down in the last 12 months, including over the Christmas period, with the repair centre saying it would be New Year before it would be back in action again due to holiday-induced delays.Mr Ross said: “Residents have campaigned to Northwards Housing and Manchester City Council that such blocks, where lifts do not serve every floor, should be made an absolute priority and parts for these lifts should be kept 'on the shelf' rather that having to wait for parts to arrive from some distributor.”
A Manchester City Council spokesperson has promised that the lifts will soon serve all floors, adding: "We were alerted to the breakdown of one of the lifts on Thursday last week (April 7) due to a failed part.
"This part has now been received and we can confirm that the lift has been repaired."Refurbishment plans are in place for this financial year that will upgrade the two lifts so that both serve all floors - rather than one servicing odd floors and the other even, which is currently the case."