Dissatisfied with council response

Hazel Chapman, Lime Tree Avenue, Retford, Notts

I would like to further comment on JM Turner’s letter (September 9).

I also wrote to the council on August 25 using their Complaints Procedure to ask why the cliff lift has been permanently out of order since it broke down in September 2021.

I received a very prompt, but, in my view, entirely unconvincing response to the effect that "the Cliff Lift is an aged facility and unfortunately significant work has been required. These works are of a specialist nature and have therefore taken time to design and implement".

It then went on to say that if I was still dissatisfied with the response I could refer the complaint to Stage 2 of their procedure to be reviewed by an independent panel. I replied that I wished to proceed to Stage 2 and am waiting for the panel's response.

As far as I am aware, work on the cliff lift did not begin until late spring/ early summer. Why was that? Did it really take from last September until May to identify the problem and design and make the part that was required?

In the meantime, at least one member of the public was writing to the council,

and even calling in person to the council offices, only to be stone-walled at every turn.

I know of another (elderly) person who regularly phoned the council and was given the brush-off and whose enjoyment of the facilities around the South Cliff have been eroded.

In the meantime, the public, who are supposed to be being served by the council, the visitors and a great many of the businesses around South Cliff have suffered.

The public, many of whom are elderly, have suffered through not being able to access the facilities on South Bay’s shore, the most important being the Spa concert hall.

A person collapsed recently attempting the arduous ascent from the shore and an ambulance had to be called. On another occasion, someone riding in a motorised wheelchair broke down on the way up the path.

If, as was stated in the reply to me, the council "take their responsibilities for the safety of the public seriously," why is it, 12 months after the lift broke down, we still do not have a lift that is actually working?

This is an absolute disgrace. Shame on you Scarborough Council.