Residents of a council-owned block of flats in Mile End had to be rehoused when its lift shaft filled up with sewage water.
Lift shafts at Angela Court in Burdett Road filled with “wastewater” after the sewage system – which runs through the shafts – broke down earlier this year.
Gulam Hussain, the council’s director of neighbourhoods and customer services, said some families had to be rehomed “for near enough two weeks” while the lifts were fixed.
However, he said that work to fix the underlying cause would take “significant investment” and may not even be “technically feasible”.
Hussain said: “The problems themselves aren’t with the lifts. It’s actually the way that the sewage system in the blocks are run, and they run within the lift shifts.
“What we find quite routinely is that the pumps that address that go out of action and that causes the lift shafts to fill up with wastewater sewage, and that in turn impacts the electrics of the lifts.”
He added: “Fundamentally the issues are with the pumps themselves, and that in our view would be a design problem that we can’t necessarily easily address.
“It requires probably some significant investment to try and retrospectively try and address. Whether or not it’s even technically feasible, that’s something we would need to explore in some depth.”
Hussain was speaking to council leaders at a cabinet housing sub-committee last month.
Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman said Angela Court residents had been “up in arms” over the breakdown.
He also said he wanted to look into whether the developer Canary Wharf Group might be liable for repair costs.
The company, which owns much of Canary Wharf, built Angela Court as affordable housing as part of its obligations under a planning agreement for a separate site.
It then sold the building to the then Labour-controlled council in 2019.
The council told the LDRS it is now in ongoing discussions with Canary Wharf Group regarding the design and repair issues.
It said there had been four lift outages at Angela Court since 2019, and that six households were temporarily rehomed during the most recent one. The council didn’t say when this was, but said all residents had now returned.
A spokesperson said: “We are aware of the lift outages at Angela Court and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused residents. Both lifts are now operational following interim repairs.
“We are actively progressing plans for a long-term solution to the sewage system to improve reliability and prevent future disruptions.”
Canary Wharf Group declined to comment.
