Mum faces five year wait for new flat despite damp

Tina Cope, who was told the move to her current flat would be temporary, has already been living in it since 2019

A woman who said she was told the damp flat a council gave her was temporary is still there five years later despite her son needing hospital treatment.

Tina Cope said she was told by Sandwell Council it would be at least another five years before she could be rehoused.

The council said it recognised its failings in the way it handled her complaints and the ongoing distress caused to her family.

“We are working with Ms Cope and her family to make ongoing repairs to the property, to rectify issues relating to water getting in, damp and mould," a spokeswoman said.

Councillor Laura Rollins says the pressure to meet the housing need in Sandwell was huge

Ms Cope's problems first arose when she had to leave her last home through a "no fault eviction", in August 2019.

The 36-year-old was issued with the Section 21 notice by a private landlord she was renting from.

Despite the council saying her current three-bed ground floor flat in Walsall would be temporary, she said the authority has told her a similar property will not be available until 2029.

Ms Cope, who has two teenage children, said: “The day of viewing you could smell the muskiness, you could smell the damp and then I found a big puddle of water under my son’s bed, and I still have no idea where it was coming from.

“It doesn’t matter how many reports I put in about the repairs. It doesn’t matter how much it plays on you mentally, they are just not interested.

"I’ve gone through the housing ombudsman and two MPs to try to push this forward and I don’t get any response.”

'Son's asthma attacks'

Ms Cope, a clinical support worker at Russell's Hall Hospital, said her 13-year-old son now slept in the lounge of her home near Wednesbury because of the breathing difficulties he has, but his health was still suffering.

“He’s having asthma attacks he never had before, he’s on medications that patients with lung conditions in an older aged person are on, that he shouldn’t be on in his age," she said.

Five hundred council houses have been built in Sandwell since 2016.

The authority estimates the borough will have a shortfall of nearly 20,000 homes by 2039.

Ms Cope said her home suffered from damp and mould

The mould has been re-occurring for a number of years

Laura Rollins, cabinet member for housing and the built environment, said the council did not have enough homes, especially for people who need bigger houses.

“We are actually losing homes every year. We lost 275 homes in Sandwell last year, to right-to-buy, so we would have to build that many every year just to stay level.

“We have got huge issues with land availability and the state of the land and the need for remediation and we do need government support to be able to remediate that land.”

In response to Ms Cope's case a council spokesperson said: “We have learned from this particular case and we have already made a number of changes to the way we handle complaints from residents.

“We have apologised for the delay and inconvenience caused to Ms Cope and her family."