A woman has hit out at a building firm after falling over in a construction site passageway near Leeds Corn Exchange.
Norah Hamill has compared the firm’s ‘lack of accountability’ to the Grenfell cladding disaster.
The 50-year-old fell in Call Lane in Leeds city centre, between the Corn Exchange and vintage clothes shop Blue Rinse, cutting her knees and palms, and sustaining bruises.
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Norah claims to have stepped into an uneven patch of kerb “like a pothole” which was not safely behind a barrier.
The Holmfirth woman was dismayed to learn the construction firm John Sisk & Son, known as SISK, does not have a formal complaints procedure.
Norah said: "Not having a complaints procedure, as a SISK liaison representative states, shows neglect and lack of accountability. This company is doing works in other areas including Halifax.
"I have alarm bells going off and so should the general public. If this neglect is happening at a basic administrative level, I question the culture of the company. It is such failures that led to the Grenfell disaster. It needs nipped in the bud, now."
The incident occurred on Tuesday, February 15, at around 1pm, when Norah was heading towards Blue Rinse.
She’s said the whole event was embarrassing, causing her to go into a panicked “flight mode” and dash away after she fell. She was left shaken by the incident.
Norah, who receives benefits, says this has also stopped her from carrying out reflexology therapy which she sometimes does to earn extra money.
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After the incident, Norah claimed an employee of SISK offered to give her a lift home to Holmfirth – but the trip was cut short after Norah had told her everything about the incident.
Norah says she felt like the SISK representative was attempting to extract and manipulate information from her during the journey.
Norah said: “I said to her in good faith, all you have to do is move the fence and it should be more better positioned to be safe. As soon as we had that conversation, she said she’d just drop me off in Huddersfield.”
Leaked emails from the SISK employee appear to show her saying “we don’t have [a] formal complaints procedure”.
Asked why the company doesn't have a formal complaints procedure, SISK said it has a team of stakeholder managers who deal with complaints and meet and talk to people daily.
A SISK spokesperson said: "While we don’t comment on individual cases, we would like to reiterate that John Sisk & Son puts safety at the centre of all its projects and all our staff and subcontractors are required to operate to the highest standards.
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"We work closely to ensure every stakeholder close to the project is safe. We work closely with our clients, such as Leeds City Council, on a daily basis to help deliver the new infrastructure in the City Centre.
"We have a team of dedicated stakeholder managers who meet and talk to people daily to understand how projects are impacting them and they deal with any complaints or concerns people have through our agreed procedures."
The road in Call Lane has been under construction since January 2021, as part of Leeds City Council’s Connecting Leeds campaign which aims to add tramlines through the city centre.
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