Residents at Tube Court say that recent flooding was compounded by a lack of communication with building landlords Home Group
A Newcastle councillor has called for a safety review into a tower block where residents have been plagued by floods and leaks. Coun Alistair Chisholm says he is “deeply concerned” that residents at Tube Court, on Howard Street in the Battlefield area east of the city centre, were left without water following flooding in the building on Friday, February 13 and Tuesday, February 17.
Residents have reported feeling unsafe and anxious in their flats, with one resident, who spoke to ChronicleLive anonymously, saying that every floor was damaged and that water was “gushing from the ceiling”.
The issues are understood to have come in part from defective pipes in the building. Home Group says that the affected pipes have now been replaced.
However, the floods have caused damage to lighting, ceilings, carpets and stairwells in communal areas, lifts out of order and the basement bin store being flooded. Residents say that the issues were compounded by a lack of communication from Home Group, and that they were unable to reach anyone from the housing association on an out of hours number.
The resident said: “The communal stuff, all the carpets were soaking. We were left completely on our own.”
On February 13, ChronicleLive understands that firefighters attended the flooding and could not hand over to Home Group for two hours after they had made the building safe. When they eventually got through to an out of office number, they were told it would be another six hours before Home Group staff would be on site.
The resident added: “I think we should always have somebody on call for an emergency, it’s ridiculous we have wasted resource with the Fire Brigade to get hold of Home Group. We were just left to our own devices, communication is terrible.
“We were sleeping in a building without knowing if there was a detection system for fires.”
Further flooding caused disruption on Tuesday, February 17. Some residents moved to alternative accommodation with friends and family until water was back on, while others were left with six two-litre bottles as they water was off again.
The resident said: “We have no confidence in Home Group at all. I love my flat but I no longer feel safe in my building.”
Green Party councillor Alistair Chisholm, who represents the Ouseburn Ward, has been supporting residents in Tube Court. He is set to meet with Home Group bosses in the coming days in the hope of bringing changes.
He said: “I want a safety review of the building, I’m pretty convinced from conversations with residents that this (the issue with the pipes) is a problem that has been going on for a long time. I want some accountability for what happened, why their maintenance system failed.
“I want them to tell me how they’re going to change emergency procedures, going for a whole weekend without being able to get hold of a landlord is not acceptable.”
Andy Hall, regional director at Home Group, said: “We apologise for the issues our customers experienced and their difficulties contacting us, and we will use this situation to learn from and improve that experience. I can reassure customers that we have fully replaced the defective pumps with new equipment, and the system is now up and running.
“We have also checked to make sure there are no issues with the alarm system, and our team is carrying out a safety review to reassure our customers their homes and the building remain safe. We are arranging to clean and repair the damage to the communal areas, and as part of that safety review we will be checking all of the systems in the building.”
“We have also made the decision to compensate our customers for the disruption they experienced and will be sharing further details with them this week. As part of that, our team will be reaching out each customer individually, and we ask that they share any other issues they are having with us.
“I am meeting with Cllr Chisholm personally later this week to update him on the situation as well.”
