Canterbury woman calls for accessible council housing
Jane Roberts can no longer use her bath after a knee operation that left her with reduced mobility. She says the city council has ignored her requests for a wet room.
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00:00 For this Canterbury woman, she's not washing the dishes, but filling up a bucket to wash
00:05 herself down with.
00:06 Earlier this year, Jane Roberts had an operation to her knee.
00:10 She says that's left her unable to use her bathroom.
00:13 Every day, Jane's now going through the same routine, strip washing herself in the front
00:19 room.
00:20 She lives in a Band D council home.
00:22 It's the lowest priority in allocations.
00:24 You know, if it ain't just me, there must be other people out there doing the same thing
00:29 - "Oh, I'm in Band D, the council are promising to move me" - and they're not.
00:34 They're not doing nothing.
00:35 And it's so heartbreaking because I can't be doing anything.
00:39 Tell us, how often have you been contacting the council?
00:42 Since January.
00:45 Ongoing, every day.
00:48 Jane is calling on Canterbury City Council for a wet room, but she says she has repeatedly
00:52 been denied this.
00:54 She can just about wash her hair under the shower, but her living room is her bathroom.
00:59 Also her bedroom.
01:01 She'd thought she'd be relocated to a new home.
01:04 All her possessions were packed into her bedroom.
01:06 She still hasn't left.
01:08 It's totally disgusting what they're doing.
01:11 And they've just left me here, knowing I'm suffering with stress.
01:15 So more stress has come on top.
01:18 And it's just not right.
01:19 They can't be doing that to me.
01:20 You can't be doing that to a person.
01:22 They're human.
01:24 Since her operation, friends have rallied around to support her with day-to-day tasks
01:28 such as shopping.
01:31 How do you feel about this?
01:32 How do you feel about your friend being in this situation?
01:34 I feel terrible about it, really.
01:35 It's disgusting.
01:36 She shouldn't live like this.
01:37 She wants a peaceful life, you know what I mean?
01:38 And to wash herself.
01:45 Canterbury City Council sent us this statement.
01:48 This is a really complicated case, and we've been doing our best to support our tenant
01:52 while she has been in the process of making some important decisions about where she wants
01:56 to live.
01:57 Once she is more settled, we will work with occupational therapists to adapt her property
02:01 to ensure it meets her ongoing needs.
02:05 In England, just 7% of bathrooms are adapted to be more accessible.
02:10 And disability campaigners are calling for new homes which are being built to have accessibility
02:15 in mind.
02:16 One of the issues is there's a distinct lack of accessible housing in the UK.
02:23 I mean, what they tend to do is all these big developments talk about an element being
02:29 social housing, an element being affordable housing, but they never ever talk about an
02:33 element being accessible housing.
02:36 And for me, if you build accessible housing as part of a new development, then you're
02:42 future-proofing that development for later on, especially in terms of social housing.
02:46 For Jane, though, she hopes her quality of life will soon improve.
02:50 But until then, she has to rely on her friends and her bucket to keep herself clean.
02:56 Gabriel Morris for KMTV in Canterbury.