A month without lifts for a block full of elderly and disabled people is quite obviously not acceptable.
I feel a bit like a broken record writing columns every week about how unaccountable housing associations can be, but that’s their problem rather than mine.
It may not have been entirely foreseeable that three lifts (and counting) would break in the same month, and I accept that Circle has contractors whose job it is to keep them running.
All the same, the buck stops with the organisation that took over management of these flats from the local authority. Whether it maintains them by hiring contractors or by sticking a toolbelt on its chief executive and stationing him or her in a tent in the stairwell, Circle has a duty – and it is being paid – to provide safe, accessible homes for vulnerable people. If parts take a month to order, order them in advance – don’t wait for a lift or three to pack up and then hope people don’t mind sitting tight for a few weeks.
I expect Circle to compensate its residents for the service charges they have been paying once this fiasco is sorted out.
• It’s hard to fault Andrew Spencer’s call for a set of pedestrian crossings at Drayton Park and Palmer Place.
The crap provision for cyclists and pedestrians along the Holloway Road is an embarrassment to TfL.
It might be time to think about additional crossings when people would rather wade into a six-lane dual carriageway than walk 300 yards to the lights. Meanwhile, the closest thing to room for cyclists is an extremely busy bus lane, and even that has parking spaces painted onto it at various points. It would seem the car is still very much king in this part of Islington.