the ECHO<\/a> yesterday morning, Robert explained he reached the end of his tether when the chairlift broke down. He said: “There’s been problems with the lift more often than not over the last five years. It’s starting to fail.<\/p>\n“Rubax, the lift engineers that come to see us, they are so unreliable. I can’t do stairs. It was broke for nine days on the trot. They come out, not immediately because they only have two men working the northwest and it’s hard getting them out. They come out, (do) 10 minutes work, they’re gone. And every single day the lift failed shortly after they left.<\/p>\n
“I’m an early riser. Honestly, it makes you anxious. The chairlift packed in yesterday. That’s when I exploded. I had enough.<\/p>\n
“(When the lift wasn’t working), I get on the chair lift and go down to do my shopping. But it’s hard getting back because I’ve got shopping (bags).<\/p>\n
Robert argues the issue is affecting his neighbours even more. He said: “I’m fighting for everyone here because there’s a ground floor, a first floor and a second, and a lot of them are housebound. We’re all old. I’m 73 and I think the eldest is 92.<\/p>\n
“It was like a prison for them (when the lift wasn’t working). Yesterday Rubax were there for at least the whole afternoon, which is what they should have done in the first place. They give it a little tinkle with the screwdriver and it works, but (only for) a short time.<\/p>\n
Robert said he now worries the lift will be broken every time he leaves his flat. He said: “I got up with trepidation this morning. The lift was working, but you have no confidence in it – is it going to fail again?<\/p>\n
Robert believes the lift needs a full service to stop it breaking. He said: “Yesterday, Rubax spent a good five hours there, which they should’ve done from day one, as there’s been that many complaints. I work for myself and if I had a complaint.<\/p>\n
“I go back and remedy that complaint. It’s not professional. One of the guys said, it’s an old lift. It’s only been there for about 15 years. It’s a cop-out. Just do your job.”<\/p>\n
It needs a good service, take it apart, put it out of service for a day or two. We pay for it as tenants and that’s what we want. I don’t mind – to keep the place running, you’ve got to pay money.<\/p>\n
Robert praised how Plus Dane staff have cared for him since he moved in but argued the quality of the service has reduced. He said: “I’m in my 15th year of living here. I came in 2011 straight from hospital. The staff are absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n
“But I think the whole world’s changed in the last 15 years, there’s been cutbacks everywhere. The managers, they were like guardian angels. With covid, it reduced working hours for working staff.<\/p>\n
“The manager used to work all day. She works half a day now. I don’t want any disparagement against the maintenance team here, they are absolute darlings.<\/p>\n
“My daughter-in-law gave Plus Dane a blasting, saying it’s like a prison for them. (Help) should come from higher up. They should be knocking on the doors of the older people saying, are you all right, do you need anything, do you want any shopping? Because they’ve done that in the past when they’ve been there.<\/p>\n
“It’s been stressful for everyone. This is a very nice place, but you have to get that measure of getting out, do your shopping, go to see family, go out for a coffee with friends. Otherwise, it becomes a prison.”<\/p>\n
Chris Morris, executive director customer, communities and homes, said: “We’d like to apologise for the frustration and inconvenience that intermittent lift and stairlift failures have caused our customers in Christopher Taylor House over a nine-day period. Unfortunately during this time the stairlift was also out of service for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n
“We are very sorry for the stress and worry it has caused residents who were not able to leave their homes as a consequence and agree it is an unacceptable situation. We are working hard to ensure it does not happen again.<\/p>\n
“We contacted our contractors as soon as we were made aware of the issues, to request emergency repairs. Both the lift and the stairlift are now up and running again, including a replacement part in the main lift that we hope will prevent further issues.<\/p>\n
“While the lifts were out of order, our colleagues were on hand to assist with any additional help needed, and were contactable at all times, via phone, text and in person to help keep residents safe and well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Lang said he reached the end of his tether earlier this week Douglas Cockbain, Robert Lang and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1062849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,347,393,4884,6333,179,28277,16,15],"class_list":["post-1062848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-liverpool","tag-britain","tag-disability","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-housing","tag-liverpool","tag-maghull","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116847722322424054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1062849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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