Grandmother forced to wash in a sink because council refuses to install stairlift

A grandmother is not able get upstairs to use the shower in her own house because the council refuses install a stairlift.

Mlynn Thomas, 83, has to wash in the downstairs toilet sink and sleep in her living room.

She hasn’t been upstairs since 2016 when she underwent major surgery that left her unsteady on her feet.

Unable to reach her bedrooms upstairs, Ms Thomas has to store all her possessions in the cramped living room and kitchen of the house in Gipsy Hill.

She spends most of her days sitting in the dining room of the four-bedroom house, surrounded by broken kitchen cabinets and piles of boxes.

Ms Thomas said: “I can’t live like this – this is the 21st century. How can they make someone live like this?

“There’s no heating coming out of the radiators because everything is stacked behind the boxes. I have to leave the patio door open because I have asthma.

“They were going to knock down this estate in 2017 and because they were going to demolish it they won’t put in a stairlift.

“I was supposed to get a kitchen in 2015 and it didn’t come. If I got the kitchen unit done I could say to the grandchildren ‘let’s have fish and chips.’”

Lambeth council’s property company, Homes for Lambeth, intends to rebuild the Central Hill Estate to create new homes.

Ms Thomas claims the council won’t give her a stairlift because of the plans.

She is so fed up of being stuck downstairs that she now wants to move out of London altogether.

She said: “I don’t want to stay in London anymore. If tomorrow they could say ‘I have got something for you by the sea’ I would just go.

“I need to get away to somewhere where I can sit in the sun and relax and be more like I used to be.”

Cllr Pete Elliot, green member for Gipsy Hill, said residents like Ms Thomas were being treated as an inconvenience.

He said: “The policy of Lambeth Labour has been to build 1,000 council homes. It proposed to do this by first emptying estates of their communities and then demolishing almost 1,400 homes.

“In a drive to force residents away, repairs and normal adjustments for disabilities have not been carried out and residents are encouraged to move out instead.”

A spokesman for Lambeth council said: “We have been working with Ms Thomas for several months to ensure her housing meets her needs. She has also been given the highest priority for a move to a more suitable council home, and we have already made a number of offers of other properties

“The council will continue working with Ms Thomas to find another council home in Lambeth that meets all her preferences. We have also helped Mrs Thomas in applying for a transfer to a property elsewhere in the country.

“Lambeth is facing an unprecedented housing crisis. We are rebuilding a number of estates, including Central Hill, to provide hundreds of new, better homes for existing tenants and people on the council’s housing list.”