Sheffield housing repair ‘horror stories’ prompts nearly 900 signature petition

Campaigner Sophie Thornton presented the petition during a virtual full council meeting this week.

She said various people across the city faced frustrating waiting times for work on their homes, the longest being 10 years.

Ms Thornton gave examples of cases including where people had no shower for six weeks, waited 18 months for a serious leak to be fixed and had water leaking from a toilet into their home where they live with their young child.

“This petition has taken off, especially in Lowedges, Jordanthorpe, Batemoor, Parson Cross and Westfield,” she said. “When all of these people and more, you only need to look at the comments on Sheffield Online, say the same thing – that the council’s housing repair service is broken, it doesn’t work for me and I don’t think they even care how long can we keep saying this isn’t a problem?”

Councillor Paul Wood, cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said prior to Covid-19 the average repair time in all sectors of the service was 15.09 days but this had risen to 17.84 days over the past year. However he admitted some take considerably longer for various reasons.

Replying to Ms Thornton he said: “What you read out sounds like a horror story and I personally apologise to every tenant who has gone through the problems that you have just outlined.

“I wouldn’t like to pass comment on any of those individual cases without looking at them in detail and I thank you for forwarding me all of the addresses, I promise you that will be looked at and I will get a report on all of those cases and let you know what the outcome is.”

Coun Wood said two of the service sectors were not operating during the pandemic but would be up and running again by Thursday, March 4.

There are also plans to increase the workforce by offering overtime, recruiting more operatives, filling vacancies, promoting apprentices and reaching out to sub contractors.

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