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A disabled woman has hit out, claiming her local council left her with an unfinished bathroom for almost two months.

Karen Scott, 61, is disabled, suffering from arthritis and relying upon crutches or a frame to get about. Despite securing a borough council grant for work to turn her bathroom into a wet room, the job has been left unfinished. 

Karen claims she was told by Newcastle Borough Council that it would take five to 10 days to complete the work. However, the project was still not finished seven weeks later. The problems have included a toilet which is too low, a loose tap, and unfinished plastering.

“[The contractors] put a new toilet in but it is too low and I fell off it as there were no handrails,” Karen explained. “It is hurting me to sit down on it.

“The handrails were installed and they had these sharp metal edges on them. My grandson cut his finger on it. It was very dangerous. The tap on the basin is loose as well.

“They are just taking too long. I have never known anything like it. They shouldn’t keep people with bad disabilities waiting.”

A former receptionist, Karen has lived in her Newcastle-under-Lyme home for 43 years, reports Stoke-on-Trent Live. 

“I have asked for a council bungalow and I want to sell this,” Karen continued. “We are already having problems. I don’t even have the heating on. I am already vulnerable and it has been freezing in there.

“I just want to know why have they taken so long. It’s sickening. I want to try to sort this out With them turning it into a wetroom, I can’t get in and out and it has been left incomplete.”

Newcastle Borough Council spends £1.7 million a year on home adaptations in residents’ properties.

Councillor Gill Heesom, cabinet member for wellbeing, said: “For a few more weeks the adaptation work is being done and managed by an outside contractor. It may be that in this case there were complicating factors once work had begun, but this is certainly not the standard we would expect and we will look into it.

“In April, the present contract ends and the work will be managed in-house. We will automatically review the progress of all current work as part of the takeover process and although there is a great deal of demand for this service in the borough, we will deal with it as fast as we can.”

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