Disabled woman trapped in Milton Keynes council flat due to concrete steps

Annette Paul cannot get her wheelchair up the steps directly outside the front door to her Hodge Lea council home.

She has a back door, but that takes her into a small walled garden - with no exit gate.

“I am trapped inside this flat 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s so miserable,” said the 67-year-old, who suffers from severe spinal problems.

The problem started when her relationship with her partner broke down and she was forced to live alone.

“He used to pick me up and lift me over the steps. But now I have no-one to do that. There is now way I can walk up them, even using two sticks,” she said.

Annette is reliant upon her neighbour, who 67, to bring her food an everything she needs from the “outside world.”

For the past year she has been asking MK Council to move her from the Kildonan Place flat into a property with disabled access.

“I told the council I will only consider properties on Hodge Lea because I cannot bear not to be close to my neighbour. She is my lifeline. But nothing is happening. It’s so frustrating,” she said.

Annette added: “I have mental health problems and being trapped here is making me worse. I feel like a prisoner. The days are so long ... all I can do is read and watch TV.”

An MK Council spokesman said today: “We have been working with Ms Paul to find a suitable property. The council is limited by the accommodation it holds, and given the specific property criteria requested, it has taken longer to find an appropriate property than we anticipated"

She added: "Unfortunately the properties offered to date have not met the full criteria set out by Ms Paul, but we will continue to work with her to find her a suitable property.”