St Francis Tower in Ipswich still unsuitable for tenants

St Francis Tower was evacuated after a huge water leak caused significant damage to the building back in July 2023.

Since then, residents have been living out of hotels and temporary flats until the issue can be sorted.

The previous building managers, Block Management UK, resigned from controlling the building, with Inspired Property Management taking over at the start of the year.

Block Management UK has repeatedly been contacted by this paper for comment, dating back to July.

It was also contacted for comment on this situation, but has not done so.

Inspired Property Management was also approached.

St Francis Tower is a very prominent building in the town centre (Image: Charlotte Bond)

Ross Bonner, a leaseholder in the building, said: "It's become farcical.

"The way they have been dealing with it is on a week by week basis, they're only now starting to accept that they need to put effort in longer term to take away some of the stress and strain on people.

"The treatment residents have received by the management is nothing short of shambolic.

"I was pushing constantly to get more clarification and more updates on how the work is progressing and timescales we can expect so we can pass on information to the tenants but we heard nothing from October.

St Francis Tower (Image: Charlotte Bond)

"They're now saying it will be a further four or five months on top of the six people have suffered already, and it just becomes a farce."

One resident, who lives in the building, said: "Things were progressing, but then we hear about a second leak, a week after it occurred.

"Block Management UK wrote to us in November to say that they were resigning. It was shocking how bad they were.

St Francis Tower (Image: Charlotte Bond)

"We are yet to be introduced to Inspired and have communications from them so it's not looking great in terms of them being better at communicating."