Life 'trapped' in Nottingham's tallest tower block

BBC News

06-05-2025

Liam McClelland says he has some of the best views of the city from his home in one of the tallest buildings in the East Midlands.But living more than 20 floors high in Nottingham's Victoria Centre flats, he says unreliable lifts can leave many of his neighbours "trapped". Within the space of a year, lifts in the 26-storey social housing complex broke down more than 100 times, with 23 occasions when they were down for at least 12 hours, according to data obtained by the BBC. Nottingham City Council said it was committed to ensuring the lifts were "as reliable as possible".
The flats above the shopping centre are allocated for tenants who are either employed, in receipt of Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment, or who are retired. Mr McClelland, who lives on the 21st floor, says those with physical disabilities were particularly badly impacted."What they're doing, in effect, is trapping people in this building when the lifts break down," said Mr McClelland. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Nottingham City Council showed the lifts broke down 109 times between 1 March 2024 and 28 February 2025.
There are six lifts located across the complex which the council says each make 600 journeys a day on average, and which are serviced monthly by its maintenance contractor. But tenants say they have long complained about the lifts being frequently out of use. For Mr McClelland and his neighbours in the tallest tower of the complex, when the lifts are down, they have to walk to the tenth floor and through a corridor leading to an adjoining block, to access an alternative lift - an arduous and sometimes impossible journey for those with limited mobility. The 37-year-old added: "Sometimes it feels like it's every other week. It really impacts your day-to-day living. "Any plans that you had, you've got to factor in - will I still be able to get into my flat if the lifts aren't working? "Do I want to walk up all them flights of stairs? How much shopping can I carry up these stairs?"
'Traipse up the stairs'
In some cases, residents resort to cancelling their plans. That is the case for 72-year-old Oscar Smith who also lives on the 21st floor."I stay in and just keeping popping my head round to see if one's working," he said."It's OK when one is broken but when two are broken you're just trapped."Mr Smith added despite the issues with the lifts, he had enjoyed living in the complex for almost 20 years. A 24th-floor resident, Julia McBride had also enjoyed the convenience of living above a shopping centre for the last 34 years, despite the ongoing concerns around the lifts - which she believed were not as bad as they were before being replaced five years ago. The 81-year-old recalled the long walk to find a working lift but her age and limited mobility meant she could not longer do that.She said: "It's always worry if the lifts are playing up because you go down and you worry about the lifts working when you come back to them."If I can't get out [my son] will go, but then he has to traipse up the stairs."It's always the same. The council will be really apologetic and then in a few weeks it will go back to normal."The authority said on the "rare occasion" multiple lifts were out of service, all affected residents would be kept informed, with extra support offered to those with "additional needs" who could not easily access stairs.
Anthony Creedon, who has arthritis in his legs and uses a walking stick, said he complained about the lifts on numerous occasions and believed other tenants had "given up", believing nothing would be done. He said if the lifts accessing his floor were working but others were not, he could end up waiting up to 20 minutes to get an available lift or one that had enough space."If you've got appointments with doctors and things it messes it all up and you can get as angry as you want but you won't get apologies or anything," he said.However, the city council said the lifts for the Victoria Centre flats were available "more than 95% of the time, on average" during the period March 2024 to February 2025. Lifts one and two, in the tallest block, had 33 and 37 callouts respectively over the year - the most frequently reported to have broken down of the six. During that period, the council said £19,968.51 was spent on repairing the lifts which - including "chargeable call-outs, additional contractual parts and chargeable repairs".
A spokesperson for the city council said: "Residents can report issues to us 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we have a team who also proactively check lift availability regularly through remote monitoring information."Our lift engineers are available 24 hours for call outs with a target to attend breakdowns within two hours (within four hours for out-of-hours) and within 45 minutes (75 minutes for out-of-hours) for trapped passenger reports."If a lift does go out of service, we make sure the contractor is contacted as soon as this is reported to us, with the aim of having the lift back in service as quickly as possible. Most of the time, this is within the same day of us receiving the report."If a repair is more complex or requires a specific part to be ordered, this may result in a delay to getting the lift back into operation."Sometimes a lift may go out of service for non-mechanical reasons like users holding lift doors open for a long period, accidental damage or occasional acts of vandalism."It added the of the 109 callouts reported during this period, 28 were as a result of this, with a further 18 of the callouts finding the lift operating as normal on arrival."We continue to work hard with residents on ways to prevent accidental damage and always look to take the strongest possible action against anybody found to be damaging the lifts maliciously."