Many customers have experienced problems with lifts in recent years, and we’ve seen a particularly high level of breakdowns this year.

We are sorry that this is happening, and we understand it is extremely frustrating and particularly problematic for those who find stairs more of a challenge.

We recognise that the important thing to you is not the reasons for the problems – it’s what we’re doing to fix it.

So, here are the key actions we’re taking to resolve the problem.

1. We’re investing more than £2.2m to replace our older and less reliable lifts this year.
2. We’re appointing new lift contractors who will be able to tackle problems more quickly. We’ve already carried out some customer consultation on that and will be working closely with customer panels and others to ensure the contract specification for those contractors is in line with customers’ expectations
3. We’re also looking to widen our supply chain to make it easier to source common parts so they are more readily available.
4. We’re carrying out additional lift maintenance inspections, which has significantly reduced the amount of time our lifts are out of action as well as condition surveys of all lifts by an independent expert.
5. We’re working to communicate more effectively with you when outages take place, including assigning a specific member of the team to take responsibility for that.
6. Finally, we’ve put a porter system in place which will ensure that, where a breakdown occurs in one of our taller buildings, when the lift has broken down, to help customers carry items up and down the stairs.

This is not a simple issue to resolve.

Across the properties we manage, there are hundreds of lifts of various ages which have been built and installed by different manufacturers. Each lift manufacturer has specialist contractors who are trained to carry out repairs on specific lifts.

There are also a limited number of manufacturers which makes it hard to source parts, especially for older or less common models. This can also cause delays as manufacturers are prioritising urgent repairs over routine maintenance.

Finally, changes in trade regulations post-Brexit can also affect the import and export of lift parts between the UK and other countries and slow down the process. Similarly, increased regulations have made the parts verification process slower.

For more information on building safety in general, please click here.

First published on One Housing website 19 November 2024