Residents in Ayr street say housing conditions are dangerous

Jul 30 2010 by Stuart Wilson, Ayrshire Post (main ed)

A RUN-DOWN street is threatening the health of its residents.

Neighbours living in Ayr’s Ross Street say conditions are so bad that the houses should be condemned.

And they claim council chiefs have ignored their constant pleases for help – and let the street go to rot.

Now the residents have set up a task force in a last ditch bid to lobby the council for intervention.

The catalogue of horror stories includes an 87-year-old war veteran who is scared to go to the toilet because her bathroom floor has rotted.

And a granny, who needs to use three inhalers for asthma, has a house covered with damp and floors infested with slugs.

The shocking state of homes in the Lochside area of the town has come to a head with residents saying enough is enough.

Katy McNab, 26, revealed: “All the council want to do is put a plaster over the problem – they’re not interested in fixing anything.

“But if you keep putting a plaster on a bleeding artery, it will continue to drain.

“We just feel like they don’t care about us or anything that happens here.”

OAP Hannah Bryson is another disgruntled resident, currently living in fear of her own house.

The 87-year-old explained: “I’m scared to go to my bathroom because the floor is rotting away.

“When council workers came round, they even warned me to take care walking on it before they could come back and fix it properly.

“I’m a war veteran and now I’m living like this. It’s terrible.”

Other residents claim they’ve been told to wait three years for new heating systems and insist they get little response from South Ayrshire Council when reporting problems.

Wendy Glass, 36, revealed: “I’ve had a heating engineer tell me that my central heating will not last another year.

“Last winter it packed up and I was given two electric radiators by the council to heat a four apartment house.

“I had two kids in there and no hot water. It was absolutely scandalous.

“You’ll get the same horror stories from every house in the street.”

Now the residents’ association is gearing up to launch an assault on the council in the hope of seeing some action.

The group’s chairperson, Janet Murphy, insisted: “I’ve lived here for 11 years and can’t believe how bad things have got.

“The damp in my house is terrible and when my grandkids come to stay, I sleep in the room which is worst affected.

“My daughter and me both have asthma and it’s really affecting us to stay here.”

But despite the residents’ graphic tales of woe, council chiefs insist they’re doing all they can to help.

Housing chief Kenny Leinster said: “As part of our ongoing programme of support for all tenants and residents in South Ayrshire, we are actively supporting the Ross Street tenants and residents in finding solutions to their housing needs.

“Part of this process has been to assist in the creation of a residents’ group to work collectively and in collaboration with the council and a meeting took place recently.

“After that meeting, as part of our commitment to the group, an architect visited some of the properties to assess conditions and prioritise remedial action required.

“The properties in Ross Street are due for modernisation and this work is scheduled in our capital budget for 2011/12. In the interim, we are addressing the issues highlighted by the tenants.”