• OUR main lift, at No 40 Grafton Way, WC1E 6DY has been out of order for over a month.

We do not receive any updates, nor do we have any idea whatsoever as to when this lift may be brought back into working order.

There is another lift that serves all floors. Many of residents are socially-housed and vulnerable and our mobility depends on our being able to use lifts.

The lift is subject to sporadic breakdown. However residents are not able to report this lift to Camden Council for repairs because their digital reporting system only allows us to report one lift, and this reporting has, for over four weeks, been taken up by the report described above. Residents attempting to report the lift at No 30 are unable to submit a repairs request for this reason. If you attempt to report it by phone, you will be reminded that they system can only accommodate one report.

I understand that this is a “first world” problem. There are others who have children who use buggies. We also have residents with disabilities and elderly residents, including some who have to go out as they have dogs that have to be taken out and many dogs struggle with descending stairs so these poor old people have to carry them.

In these difficult times we realise we are lucky to be housed at all. But we pay a lot of money to live here and we do not receive the services we pay for.

We do not even receive the privilege of being able to report repairs because the service is set up to skew the ability of residents to do so.

An additional irony is that we are being encouraged to walk or cycle but our attempts to do so are stymied by our inability to even reach the street.

My bicycle now serves as a glorified clothes hanger as I have fused vertebrae and am awaiting surgery and cannot continue to risk further injury by trying to carry it up 110 stairs. I am nearly 60 years old and simply unable to cope like this.

We would like to know if other Camden residents find themselves in similar predicaments? If so, we invite them to connect with us by email: graftonwayTRA@gmail.com or Facebook (Grafton Way TRA): perhaps together we might be able to prevail upon Camden so that our more vulnerable residents are not left isolated and distressed, and perhaps might be able to start planning their lives.

C JOHN
Chair, Grafton Way Tenants’ and Residents’ Association