By Sam Greasley-Machin

After 15 months of anger, Vivid took ‘papering over the cracks’ literally when the housing association attempted to fix cracks on a bedroom wall by plastering over them.

After living in the property for 13 years, Robert and Sandra Mildred have been left “angry, annoyed and massively let down” by the temporary solution to what they say is a much larger problem.

Robert told the Gazette: “It’s their house, you’d think they’d want to look after it. We try to.

“All we want is the work done, that’s all we want. We want this resolved and to move on. It feels like we’re fighting a losing battle.”

The incident started back in January 2019 when the pair originally contacted the housing association and took until December that year for a specialist to come out and assess the damage.

Sandra said they were told that the issue was due to subsidence, but on another visit a contractor said he was simply there to plaster over the cracks.

Furious with the response, the couple got in contact with Vivid, saying that they didn’t understand how the subsidence had simply disappeared.

Despite these claims, Vivid insist that there is no issue concerning subsidence damage and are working to resolve the issue.

Director of Property and Strategic services at Vivid, Julian Chin, said: “Having conducted three independent surveys by specialists in January, September and October 2019, we’ve confirmed there is no evidence of current subsidence damage to the property.”

“We’ve been advised in best practise to fix the cracking to the internal and external walls and have been in contact with Mr Mildred to arrange this but unfortunately our plasterer was unable to access the property.

“We understand Mr Mildred’s concerns and we’re keen to complete the plastering required to his home.”