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Gloria Johnson struggled down nine flights of stairs |
Residents stranded as lifts break down
Old and infirm face 25-minute walk to get out their front door as HfI struggle to fix lifts
TENANTS, including sick pensioners and pregnant women, were marooned for three days at the top of a nine-storey tower block after the lifts broke down on the Bemerton estate in Barnsbury.
Those able to get up and down the stairs at Perth House brought essential supplies for neighbours stuck indoors and non-urgent visits, particularly by elderly friends and relatives, had to be cancelled.
The block has two lifts but one has been permanently out of action since it broke down before Christmas and a caretaker had to be released from inside by the fire brigade after an hour.
Then on Friday night the other lift also broke down and pregnant women, mothers with young children and babies, and elderly tenants with heart or other medical conditions, were advised by housing staff not to use the stairs if they lived at the upper part of the building unless it was absolutely necessary.
One woman who braved the stairs from her flat on the ninth floor, Gloria Johnson, 72, said it was an experience she wouldn’t want to repeat too often.
Ms Johnson decided she needed to go out on Saturday to take some clothes to the launderette and do her regular shopping.
“Going down was all right,” she said, “but it took me almost 10 minutes and that’s with stopping to rest at each corridor.
“But coming up with two heavy bags was terrible. Fortunately I’m pretty fit but I was exhausted when I reached my flat. I had to pace myself and stop for a breath every few minutes. I think it took me about 20-25 minutes to reach the top.”
Her neighbour, Fatmir Jasharj, a 45-year-old lorry driver, was unable to leave his top floor flat due to serious back injury.
“Fortunately my family were able to do the shopping,” he said, “but it wasn’t very pleasant being marooned in your own flat for three days.”
Kerry Avis, 28, and her nine-year-old son Bailey would normally do the weekly shop together on Saturday.
“We live on the fifth floor but it is still a long way up when you have to carry four heavy bags of shopping. We went out once to get a few things to eat – but mainly stayed indoors.”
One lift was finally repaired on Monday night but Caledonian ward Councilor Paul Convery thought that the three-day delay was entirely unacceptable.
He says he thought the problem appeared to be exacerbated by the fact that maintenance staff with the borough’s housing agents Homes for Islington (HfI) are not available at the weekend.
Cllr Convery added: “We’ve urged HfI to allow the Tenants Managements Organisation [TMO] to be responsible for lift maintenance so that repairs can be done on the spot
“We need a proper assessment of both the lifts and a major repair programme carried to ensure tenants are not inconvenienced like this again.”
A spokesman for HfI said: “The lifts in Perth House were put out of action by a problem with the power supply which has now been restored.
“There is a problem with an intermittent fault on one of the lifts which engineers are working on; we apologise to the residents for the inconvenience caused by this.
“There is not any planned replacement of the lifts in Perth House but we are talking to the TMO about the long term maintenance of them,” he added. |
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