Mum hits out in Keighley house flooding wrangle (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Woman still can't go home after pipe problems

10:00am Thursday 16th August 2012 in Keighley

Julie Hastings at her flooded home

A mother and her 13-year-old son have been unable to return home more than a month after being flooded out of their house.

Julie Hastings and her son Kieran have had to live in temporary accommodation in three different places since they left their home in Heritage Way, Oakworth , Keighley , on July 3.

Much of the semi-detached house’s ground floor was wrecked after water began pouring in on June 22.

The house was flooded four times between June 22 and July 9 – ruining all the furniture, which could not be moved quickly enough.

After she and Kieran left their home they stayed briefly in her 50-year-old partner Michael Wisaur’s flat in Keighley, then in a bed and breakfast at Haworth .

They are now living in a bed and breakfast in Bingley .

She said the authorities were still refusing to take any responsibility for the flooding.

Mrs Hastings said: “This has been going on for more than five weeks and we’re no better off then when it started. We understand it’s because of a severed pipe, buried about four feet under our garden. We’ve been going down to the house each day to pump the water out. It’s in a really awful state and no one else is taking responsibility.

“I don’t have the means to go digging roads up to get this pipe fixed. But until it’s fixed or redirected nothing can be done to start repairing the house.”

Mrs Hastings works as a switch assembler for NSF Controls, in Ingrow , Keighley. She said she had been living in the Heritage Way house for nearly eight years and experienced no issues with flooding until recently.

Sanctuary Housing, which helped Mrs Hastings buy the house as part of a shared ownership agreement, has said that while it sympathised with her plight it was up to her to resolve the matter via her insurers. Spokesmen for Bradford Council and Yorkshire Water have said that while they have investigated the problem, the responsibility for tackling it does not lie with them.