At the Full Council meeting on 21 October 2020 the following question was asked by Councillor T Belben to Councillor Irvine (as Cabinet Member for Housing):
“Are you aware of the plight of the residents of Milton Mount flats? Not all the lifts have been working in 3 out of the last 4 weekends. One weekend the main entrance lifts were out of use, resulting in mums with toddlers having to use the narrow stairwells as well as disabled residents having to get to one end to the other of this huge block. The security doors have also been broken, giving non-residents access to do unspeakable things in the lifts and use drugs. At the moment, there are no security doors in place at all. When are the promised improvements going to happen, especially CCTV? “
It had not been possible for Councillor Irvine to provide a full response to the question at that meeting and so, in accordance with Full Council Procedure Rule 1.2 I.3, the following response has now been provided:
· “Lifts
All lifts were operational on 21 October 2020. Lift No 2 was reported as not working on 15 October 2020 but was reset that morning and left operational. All lifts were serviced on 12 October 2020 so would have had periods of unavailability during this time.
Lift number 1 was out of action for a 7 day period 2 September 2020 to 9 September 2020 as the doors had been kicked hard and this had damaged the door roller mechanism. The parts had to be ordered. Lift No 2 was also reported out of action on 2 September 2020 as it too had been kicked but a repair was carried out that day and it was put back in to service. Other than this misuse the lifts have been operating well and are generally in a good operational condition. There is a planned upgrade to the door roller mechanism which was to have been done as part of the wider works on site in the next few months but we are now considering bringing this forward owing to the damage done to the door mechanism on two of the lifts. This work will keep the lifts in optimum condition. Lifts are subject to an insurance inspection as part of the Council’s liability insurance. This inspection was last carried out in February 2020 and the inspectors referenced the overall good condition and limited fault history. The lift maintenance history is kept up to date on the residents’ bulletin board in the lobby of the building.
· CCTV
Installation of CCTV is proposed as part of the planned works due on site in the next few months. The CCTV installation will be carried out alongside replacement of the security doors. Preparation work for the whole programme is underway and discussions being held on where in the programme this work will be done, primarily whether better before or after the cold water services upgrade. As yet the leasehold consultation on costs has not been issued so this work could still be subject to comments on reasonableness, although generally we believe that leaseholders are in favour of the work as it may help reduce the problems highlighted above on the misuse of the lifts.“