Block Management Aid Flood Victims

Tim Dickinson of Hunters Residential Block Management recounts the events incured by Calder Valley residents over the unfortunate holiday flooding.

Hunters Residential Block Management, along with our Huddersfield estate agents were heavily involved in aiding those affected by the unfortunate Boxing Day floods this year.

Boxing Day morning, we received a call at 7.30 am from a leaseholder client whose flat was taking in water from the river Calder, which runs alongside his building.  He was desperately attempting to salvage his furniture from damage, unaware of events to follow; we sent a van to assist the move. 

Whilst this was taking place, the river breached the retaining wall and started to drastically flood more of the properties, also under our management.  The fire service arrived, evacuating affected residents. As more of our staff attended on site, we opened our offices and spent the next couple of days moving residents into our empty rental stock and local hotels.  From then on we were working non-stop every day including New Year’s Day until 9^th January, removing any wet, damaged goods from flats and installing drying equipment.

In Sowerby Bridge and Hebden Bridge we had 14 flats rendered uninhabitable, 10 of which were completely ruined requiring a full rebuild and three commercial premises damaged.

I am immensely proud of my staff in their response to the flood, giving up holidays without question and working flat out to assist our leaseholders and their tenants.  We were able to obtain our insurers immediate authorisation on re-housing costs and placed 8 residents in unoccupied flats from our Huddersfield office within days. 

It was telling that a couple of our leaseholders with flooded flats who used other management agents could not make any form of contact until Monday 4^th - by which time we already had re-housed those tenants in our properties. Once restored, we predict an influx of new properties to manage.

It was a terrible ordeal for the affected residents, including elderly people – I’m pleased we could rise to the overwhelming task to aid those in need, and honoured by the compliments my team have received from our customers as a result.

If you’re looking for someone to take over management of your block, contact the team on 0330 088 1726 or blockmanagement@hunters.com