One person living in the Sports City development told the M.E.N. they pay more than £3,000 a year in service charges
The Sport City flats next to the Etihad stadium
Residents at a block of flats in Sport City have said they had no choice but to ‘fend for themselves’ after being left without water for almost 36 hours over the New Year period.
The issue began at the 12-storey Block 5 on Stillwater Drive in the Sport City area, close to the Etihad, on the morning of New Year’s Eve, according to one resident who asked not to be named.
“There was a fire alarm at 6am,” she told the M.E.N. “Five fire engines came and that’s when the water stopped.”
The block, which is property managed by Rendall and Rittner, was built in the early 2000s during the regeneration of East Manchester and the former site of Bradford colliery. The company manages over 100 properties in the North West including the Beetham Tower on Deansgate.
The resident alleged that Rendall and Rittner gave no estimate of when the issue would be fixed, nor did they offer to provide drinking water or offers of alternative accommodation.
“We them repeatedly and they kept saying they had no ETA of when it would be fixed,” the resident continued. “They kept saying it counted as ‘out-of-hours’ service’.
“But isn’t that what they’re there for – what’s more important than water? It felt like they left us with nothing.”
The resident said that at 6pm on New Years’ Eve an engineer attended and restarted the water pumps, but that this did not solve the issue.
“It wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that they messaged to say they’d arranged for water to be delivered, over 24 hours later,” she continued. “Then shortly after that the water came back on again.
“We went nearly 36 hours without water, no washing, no drinking, couldn’t shower. My parents went to Costco to buy cases of water but I shouldn’t have to do that.
The resident alleged that Rendall and Rittner gave no estimate of when the issue would be fixed
“We tried multiple times to get in touch with them and they just kept saying they were dealing with it. I had nowhere to go and couldn’t do anything. It was horrible and felt degrading.”
This resident said that she paid an annual total of £3,600 in service charge for property management. Other listings for flats in the block, which are publicly available on RightMove and Zoopla, indicate a fee of around £2,100 for one-bedroom flats.
A spokesperson for Rendall and Rittner commented: “Residents were affected by a major water disruption at the building just before the New Year. The issue was made more challenging by limited contractor availability during the Christmas period.
“On-site teams investigated a faulty water pump. Specialist engineers attended and completed the necessary works. Bottled water was provided to residents during the outage, and the issue has now been resolved.
“Residents have been updated via the online portal.”