Hanover Tower Sheffield: Fury as residents living at council tower block left without water for whole day

Hundreds of residents at Hanover Tower, on Exeter Drive, Broomhall, were left without water for several hours after a reported water pump failure.

For two days, the 118-flat fifteen-storey tower block was affected by low water pressure, before the water was cut off completely yesterday morning (March 23) on the higher floors, leaving ‘at least a dozen’ households unable to flush the toilet or pour a glass of water – or any heating as the water supply is used for the district heating system.

John Cawthorne, a resident on the 15th floor, said he was on the phone to Sheffield City Council’s emergency repairs line for over one hour last night and was number one in the queue for almost 30 minutes before he realised ‘no one was going to answer’.

John, aged 66, and a member of the Hanover Tenants and Residents Association, said: “We’ve had this problem before. This has happened two or three times in the past and it was a pump problem.

“I'm not angry, I'm just so disappointed. This is the fourth or fifth largest city in the country. This is a large social landlord, they've got about 40,000 houses and they don't understand their own building.

“The lass across had to take her daughter to somebody else's house to make sure she gets something to drink because she'd been fasting all day because it was the first day of Ramadan.

“There's another woman who's not very well. Fortunately her son turned up and brought her some water - she was stuck in her house without any water to drink.

“The situation is madness. Four people spent about eight hours telephoning the repair service to get a result. It's an absolute disgrace. The call centre is not fit for purpose.”

After being unable to get through to the emergency repairs line, John, who has lived at the property for over 30 years, sent an email to multiple members of the council including the director of Housing, Janet Sharpe, who sent out workers to repair the issue at a time after 9pm.

Tom Smith, director of Direct Services, said: “We apologise for any delays to fixing the water supply issues at Hanover Tower yesterday. With many vulnerable people living in the building we know how important it is to ensure problems like this are fixed as quickly as possible. Within an hour of being notified, our repairs team had been out and resolved the issue.”