Greenwich (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Greenwich Borough Council faces outrage after disabled and vulnerable residents were left without water for three days due to ongoing service failures.
Greenwich council has put the lives of people living in newly constructed apartments in jeopardy, according to earlier reports by The Canary.
A resident told the Canary:
“It’s officially gone into code emergency. They don’t know how to fix the water issue, and people are being moved into temporary accommodation. They’ve just delivered a block of portable toilets and showers for people to use,”
Residents of Kidbrooke’s Ignatius Sancho Road Estate complained for six months about obstructed fire escapes, dangerous air filters that totally violate fire safety regulations, and dust from construction sites that was seriously harming their health.
The council then made the decision to sue the person who had brought the problems to light for revealing the shortcomings in public. The pretense of “harassment” was used for this. In actuality, though, she was only requesting that they address the problems that were causing her illness.
One resident at the Ignatius Sancho Road Estate in Kidbrooke, Greenwich, told the Canary:
“Water went out around 9/10am and I was not supplied with drinking water until gone 10pm despite calling the emergency line multiple times.”
She informed us that on the first day, many tenants including a vulnerable disabled tenant did not receive any water at all, and she voiced her concerns to the personnel about this. The only person who received water delivery was his neighbor.
The water outage is affecting the whole estate. This includes 122 households across four blocks of flats. After three days:
“Some lower levels have a trickle of water. I had nothing, but now I do, but the upper levels can’t even flush toilets.”
She continued:
“When I raised concerns for another disabled tenant that may potentially be going without, [name of staff member redacted] on the emergency line, refused to help. I was told she needed to call herself, despite my explaining last time she did not know what to do or who to call.
[Staff member] was more concerned about her having double the amount of water than going without, finally stating she had “logged the job for someone to drop water to your flat, anything else I can’t help with”
The resident asked two employees on the emergency line if they could identify tenants who were at risk and provide water to them personally. However, they acknowledged that they lacked access to that data. “There are a lot of people” was the rationale.
Furthermore, the employees who subsequently provided water had no idea how many apartments or tenants there were. This resulted in hours of time being wasted before residents received water as they frequently ran out of it and had to make numerous trips back and forth.
Which areas and postcodes were affected by the break?
Disabled and vulnerable residents in Greenwich Borough went without water for three days due to water outages that affected a number of areas in the borough.
Following extended water supply failures in these areas, calls for emergency assistance were made. Priority services were put into place to assist vulnerable households, but delays in repairs and communication caused considerable distress.
The council and water authorities are working to restore water supply, as well as reviewing emergency protocols to prevent more cases of prolonged water stoppages in the future.
