Both lifts at a private block in Colindale were taken out of action by the building’s management company for “unexpected essential repairs”, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

One of the broken lifts at Constantine House

Colindale residents living in an eight-floor building went without lifts for almost three weeks and said the situation was so serious one person with mobility issues was forced to temporarily move out.

Rahim Hirani lives on the fifth floor of Constantine House, part of the modern Beaufort Park estate managed by private firm Residential Management Group (RMG), and said the building houses approximately 70 flats accessed via two lifts.

Although one of the lifts has since been fixed, when both were broken Rahim spent three weeks having to carry his ten-month-old baby and their pram up and down five flights of stairs.

He said other neighbours had children too and were similarly affected, while one resident with mobility issues moved out temporarily to wait until the issue was rectified.

Rahim added the problem had also “massively impacted” his family’s Eid celebrations earlier this month.

“Effectively we had to cancel it,” said Rahim. “My mum and dad were supposed to come over, which is an annual thing, we either go to them or they come to us.

“[But] they couldn’t do stairs so they couldn’t come, they were all set for it and because it was cancelled so last minute they couldn’t make other plans either, so essentially they spent Eid at home on their own which wasn’t very nice.

“They were supposed to stay over and we were going to make a long weekend of it and so on but it wasn’t possible because we wouldn’t have been able to get my dad up and down the building.”

Rahim explained he pays £5,000 per year in service charge fees and said when he reported the issue to RMG he was told conflicting information. “They had an answer for everything, except the answer never made sense or came into fruition.”

In response, RMG’s senior property manager for Beaufort Park, Adam Peer, said: “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to residents of this particular building at Beaufort Park.

“The lifts in question required unexpected essential repairs which were subject to unavoidable delay, whilst the service provider had the control board repaired by specialists off-site.

“During this period RMG was in regular contact with residents and our staff assisted those who needed help with deliveries, groceries and luggage. One lift is now back in operation with the second expected to be fully functional next week.”

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