Council bosses have apologised to tower block tenants in Newcastle left stranded by broken lifts this summer.
Older residents and people with mobility problems have been left struggling to get to and from their homes to do their shopping, attend medical appointments, and see family or friends due to regular lift breakdowns. Lib Dem councillor Doreen Huddart told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that she had been hearing of problems since May, after a new maintenance contractor was brought in by Newcastle City Council, and it had become a “nightmare” for residents who rely on the roughly 200 lifts in Your Homes Newcastle social housing blocks.
Pensioners living in the 23-storey Cruddas Park House in the city’s West End recently complained that one of their two lifts had been out of action for several months, while the other suffered regular failures. In a question to Wednesday night’s Newcastle City Council meeting, Coun Huddart warned that malfunctions were “taking days or weeks to rectify” and asked what was being done to revise or replace the repairs contract.
