RESIDENTS are starting to feel unsafe in a housing development which has been 'neglected'.

Linden Homes has built the North Fields development in Stanford Road, Colchester.

Les Marsh moved into the final phase of the development with his wife Jeanne just over a year ago.

He and other residents are not happy with the state the site has been left in.

He said: "We live on the ground floor of a block of flats, the problems started pretty much immediately.

"The lift hasn't been working for almost a year, the door which works on a fob system hasn't worked for 10 months.

"We have had issues with electricity going off. There's also problems with the roads, landscaping and street lighting.

Gazette: Untidy - the landscaping has been left in a bad way

Untidy - the landscaping has been left in a bad way

"The whole place is just a total mess."

The development was built about seven years ago, with Les moving into the 13-flat block as the last phase.

He added: "Colne Housing and Linden Homes promised last year the landscaping would be done but it hasn't and there are weeds growing up.

"The work has got to be done I understand, but everything is taking so long.

"We have just had enough, we are feeling pretty stressed."

Arlene Moya McGill also lives in Les's block.

She added: "I’m concerned the fire safety assembly point signs were just added to the building last week, after the building has been occupied by residents for over a year.

"We have issues with plastering missing, with no contact for when this will be fixed after reporting it repeatedly.

"The communal storage bin door has never been fixed.

"I was stuck in the bike storage as the door release wasn’t working."

Residents have been speaking with Colne Housing, who manages the tenants.

Amy St Ledger, Colne's head of customer services, said: "Unfortunately our efforts to get Linden Homes to resolve these issues have not succeeded. "Colne is now putting our own measures in place to ensure customers get the services they deserve."

We contacted the press team at Linden Homes a number of times but there was no response.

Residents approached councillor Martin Goss (Lib Dem) about the issue.

He contacted Linden Homes and received the following response: "We have now had a meeting on Northfields to establish a production team to close out all issues.

"The team are meeting this Friday to produce a full scope and programme of works to package up each element for the relevant contractors. We will then procure these and instruct.

"With immediate effect, we have instructed a landscape maintenance team and they will start on site on Monday with an ongoing maintenance contract.

"Once we have received responses from all contractors, we will issue you with a finalised programme for the proposed works.

"We anticipate this being the week commencing May 28. Once this is issued, there will be transparency on what will happen and when."