A hole load of chippy trouble (From Thurrock Gazette)

A hole load of chippy trouble

10:27am Wednesday 31st October 2012 in News

A MOTHER is furious at being left for weeks with a hole from her toilet into a chip shop downstairs.

Michelle Cooper, from Chadwell St Mary, has had to put up with the large hole for the last three weeks, after council contractors opened it up to try to find the source of a leak into the shop below.

So far, what is causing the leak still hasn’t been discovered, and the fuming mum has been told workmen may even have to make the hole in her toilet, currently the size of a football, even bigger.

Michelle, who lives in a maisonette in Defoe Parade with her two-year-old son Finley, said: “I think it’s disgusting they have left me like this.

“The hole is already big enough to see into the chip shop downstairs. I’m really worried Finley could fall down it.”

Tony Dhillon, who runs the King Neptune chip shop below, is also fed up with the council, and said he has had to put up with the leaks for nearly a year.

He said: “This has been going on since November last year. “I’ve had to put a bucket on top of the counter to catch drips in the past, it doesn’t look good when customers come in.

“The council needs to get this sorted out quickly – they often say they are sending someone out to sort it, but then no one comes.”

Michelle has asked the council to move her from her three bedroom property on medical grounds.

The maisonette, which is self-contained and has a garden, has a mould problem and can only be accessed through two flights of communal stairs.

Finley was born with a skull deformity called plagiocephaly, and a chest deformity, and needs help on the stairs, while Michelle receives disability living allowance for an injury to one of her arms, and has trouble lifting her son.

A spokesman for Thurrock Council said: “Work commenced today (Monday, October 29) to address the roof leak and this will be followed by repairs to any consequential damage that has been caused to the property.”