Residents of twoMerseysidetower blocks who have been ordered to leave after the buildings were deemed unsafe say they feel “stuck” and “left behind”.
Hundreds of people living in Beech Rise and Willow Rise, which stand beside each other in Kirkby, were issued a prohibition notice by Merseyside fire and rescue service in May. It is the latest revelation of the poor conditions of many privately rented dwellings and tenants’apparent lack of rights.
Residents in Beech Rise and Willow Rise have been allowed to stay temporarily because of a 24-hour “waking watch” of trained personnel carrying out inspections on the properties. The watch is thought likely to end any day, however, so residents do not know how much time they have left in their homes as living there once the watch is over would be illegal.
Aside from the occasional sign of life the towers already look abandoned, with large puddles of water coming from behind locked doors, pipes hanging through holes in the ceiling and rubbish piling up in the hallways.
Neither building has had a working lift for the past year, and residents had complained that the combination of constant leaks and bad wiring was a fire risk. As a result, some flats had their supplies cut off, leaving many without power or water for months.
Arunee Leerasiri bought her duplex flat in Willow Rise two years ago. Now her home, into which she sank her savings, is practically worthless with no recourse to compensation.
“This is my home. Well, it used to be,” Leerasiri said through tears. “I thought I’d found my forever home. I paid to fix everything, the bathroom, the ceiling, everything. And now that’s all gone.”
She says the building’s problems were severe enough for her to try to move, but with the notice to leave in place, she was unable to sell. While the council have told her she will be rehoused temporarily, they have not said when.
“I knew that I had to move out one day because of all these problems in the building, I knew, but I can’t sell now. The building is not safe as a seller,” she said. “I can’t sign and lie to say, ‘yeah, it’s safe to sell’, so I’m stuck.”
Leerasiri has been forced to rely on the kindness of her employers to store her heavier belongings, meaning many of the things she needs for day-to-day life are no longer in her flat.
With the waking watch continuing and no money for temporary accommodation or news of when she may be rehoused, she has been forced to stay in the flat, sleeping on the floor as her bed and mattress are in storage.
The watch costs the Knowsley council about £3,000 a day and, since taking over the responsibility to fund it from the previous management company on 21 May, it has spent more than £50,000.
This process does nothing to make the building itself safer, allowing only for people to be evacuated more quickly in the event of an emergency. One fire marshall on the watch described the buildings as “incredibly dangerous”, and said that in his opinion, “nobody should have been here for a while”.
Chris Penfold-Ivany who has rented in Willow Beech for more than 15 years, said the buildings were “not fit for purpose” and that the residents had been let down.
“The companies that have ran these buildings, one after the other, have let this place fall apart,” he says. “And now it’s so far gone it would cost them millions to fix it, so we’ve just been left behind in this mess, and someone needs to take responsibility. Whoever these are, cannot be allowed to just leave this.”
Penfold-Ivany has cancer and is taking medication to treat it as well as dealing with the after-effects of a liver transplant. His medical needs have made it hard for him to move his possessions from his 13th-floor flat, and he has resigned himself to the fact that, without help, he will have to leave much of his life behind once he is forced to move.
Though he says the council have told him they will be able to house him somewhere, he is wary of leaving the area as his family, who are based in Kirkby, help him with the day-to-day chores that are are made more difficult because of his ill-health.
Anneliese Midgley, the Labour Knowsley MP, said the council was doing everything it could to address a “deeply distressing situation that has left 160 households in my constituency at risk of homelessness through no fault of their own”, and that she intended to bring the situation to national attention.
“The immediate priority must be to ensure everyone is safely rehoused,” she said. “The private companies responsible must be held to account. It’s encouraging to see the government engaging with this issue and exploring ways to help.”