00:00So Megan what's the update? Well apologies if you can hear the busy traffic but
00:06Neela it looks like the continued chaos at Miller Heights is far from over. As displaced residents
00:12have been told to find alternative accommodation for an extra 10 days. That signal that repairs
00:18to the leak in the basement responsible for cutting off power and water seems far from over.
00:23There's no update on the time frame from Centric the management company and earlier just now we
00:28caught up with a resident in the midst of moving her things across buildings. Everybody stay where
00:36it's possible some people go to the friends some people they go to family they have I'm in the hotel
00:45and it's good because my owner who because I'm for rent here four years I live here for rent
00:52it's good because my owner he helped me for the pay to the hotel and that is good for me
01:01but I travel
01:02because I'm from Bulgaria we travel to Bulgaria and I'll stay there till when he's gonna fix the problem
01:08and we can come back in the building. And can you give us a bit of context on what's been
01:12happening?
01:15Of course so residents of Miller Heights which is a flat building in the center of Maidstone where
01:20of course I am here were told on Monday evening that there was no power or water in their building
01:26after a leak in the basement cut that off. By Tuesday morning so a week ago now the management
01:32company Centric put a prohibition order notice in order sorry and say that the building wasn't safe for
01:39residents to stay there and force them out of their homes. While Masonborough Council provided
01:44initial emergency accommodation for some many residents were forced to fend for themselves
01:49like booking hotels or finding family to stay with. And what have people been saying?
01:56Well of course we've been speaking to residents all day many of which understandably didn't want to be
02:01on camera and spoke about you know the distress and and and disruption that this has caused on their
02:07lives when you're having to book time off work to move things about. We contacted Centric for an update
02:12but they were unable to get back to us and as Maidstoneborough Council have been quite a large
02:17role in trying to rehome residents across Maidstone I caught up with the council leader Stuart Jeffrey
02:22earlier for an update. To be clear Maidstoneborough Council's got a legal duty to make sure that people
02:29who are homeless are not sleeping on the streets. So you know we will continue to work with those who
02:36are
02:36currently in um temporary accommodation um that we've placed um to make sure that they are safe
02:41um and we will make sure we we are supporting others who who who find themselves um in that situation
02:50as
02:51well um we we're not going to back off from helping people um but what we are doing is being
02:57very clear
02:58with Centric that we we want to see their plans we want to know when people are coming back we
03:04want
03:05certainty because at the moment they're not giving us certainty
03:08certainty
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
03:08you
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