LIFTS at a York apartment building are so unreliable that some residents climb up to five flights of stairs for fear of being trapped inside, a resident claims.

Chris Pickering contacted The Press to highlight the problems at Rowntree Wharf, where he claimed one lift had been out of action for more than ten months and the other kept breaking down.

He claimed people had sometimes had to be rescued by firefighters and said some were so worried about getting stuck inside that they would rather climb up to five flights of stairs.

However, there were some elderly and disabled residents and visitors for whom this was not an option.

Mr Pickering said the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which owned the former flour mill in Navigation Road off Walmgate, initially told residents the lifts would be repaired but the foundation would need to recover the costs from residents.

They were subsequently told the lifts were to be replaced, and on December 8 received a letter saying a contract had been awarded in September for the replacement of both lifts.

He said he found it ‘absolutely disgraceful’ that it took more than two months for residents to be informed and said they still had no indication as to when the programme of works would start, or how long it would take.

A Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust spokeswoman said that both the broken lift and the 'working' lift in the main entrance of Rowntree Wharf would be replaced and the work was due to start on March 25.

"The first replacement should be complete early July, with the second one completing mid-October," she said.

"Unfortunately there have been a number of complications regarding additional building works to the lift, which has meant that we have not been able to start the work as quickly as we would have liked." She said the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the trust would be paying the full cost of the work.

"We have provided briefings to residents throughout the year and we apologise for any inconvenience caused," she said.

“We are aware of four occasions when the operational lift has malfunctioned in the past six months. "The faults have been remedied quickly and it was fully serviced last week so we don’t anticipate any further problems. The third lift in the Tower Elevation is also functioning.”