Flat dwellers frustrated with broken lift resort to graffiti to get Milton Keynes Council to listen

Fed-up flat dwellers have resorted to scrawling graffiti all over their walls in a last-ditch bid to get the council to repair their broken lift.

Residents in dozens of flats on the Lakes Estate’s Serpentine Court have been struggling for 10 weeks now without a working lift.

They say the lift was vandalised by people who do not live in the flats but the council seems in no rush to fix it.

“Some residents are getting very unhappy,” said one tenant. “I don’t like the graffiti but we keep getting excuses from Mears and the council, all blaming each other for the delay.”

The graffiti, written in large letters in yellow paint, covers part of the stairwell.

It consists of statements such as ‘Woman and kids suffering’, ‘No way to bring shopping up with no lift’, ‘How long must we suffer?’,

‘Phone ombudsman now’ and even ‘Scum council’.

A resident said: “We’ve been having to use the stairs for the past 10 weeks after the lift was vandalised. A lot of residents have kids and are up and down stairs with shopping. Trust me, after a full day at work you don't need the stairs and carrying shopping.”

To complicate matters, the stairwells are often full of rubbish, which is a trip hazard, he said.

He added: “I'm asthmatic, diabetic and partially blind in left eye...I find it annoying to have no lift.”

The blocks of more than 170 flats in Serpentine Court flats have become so dilapidated over the years that MK Council plans to demolish them.

But no demolition date has been given. Official notice was served by the council last October that Serpentine Court will be demolished “sometime within the next seven years. “

But residents have been assured that this is a maximum time and the council hopes to have new homes built and Serpentine Court flats emptied “well before the seven year time period”.

Meanwhile, new homes are planned for the estate and many of these will house the Serpentine Court residents.

The Citizen has asked MK City Council when it plans to repair the lift. We are awaiting a reply.