Another group of people found themselves stuck in a lift of a Gloucester shopping centre after it broke down due to ‘overheating’. A security guard was seen trying to prize the lift open in a bid to get some ventilation to those who were stuck in the lift until the controls were reset.
The lift in Eastgate Shopping Centre broke down around 1.20pm on July 13, one of the hottest days of the year. Its not the first time in recent weeks where people have been reported to be stuck in a lift in the scorching heat, as a family were stuck in the King’s Walk shopping centre on June 18 and until fire crews were arrived to get them out.
Concerns have been raised about potential health and safety problems in the Eastgate and King’s Walk shopping centres and the lifts, by a city councillor. He says the latest incident is ’embarrassing’ and slammed the city council for labelling him as ‘scaremongering’.
The city council has said they are currently monitoring all of the lifts it is responsible for. It has apologised to those people who were stuck in the lift on July 13.
Community Independent councillor for Matson, Robinswood and White City, Alastair Chambers, said: “There’s a saying, ‘egg on your face’.
Only this week, Gloucester City Council publicly labelled me a ‘scaremonger’ for raising legitimate and long-standing concerns about the safety of council-owned buildings, which specifically were the Kingswalk and Eastgate shopping centres.
“These concerns were not new; I raised them as far back as 2022 and again in 2023, particularly focusing on the maintenance and management of lifts and electrical systems within both centres. Sadly, those warnings have been ignored, and I have once again been proven right—but this is not something I take any pride in.
“Since my concerns were dismissed, a family was trapped in a lift in Kingswalk for nearly an hour during blistering heat. That incident highlighted exactly what I have been saying all along, that this was never a matter of ‘if’ the lifts would break down, but when.
“Following the media coverage of that incident, the council doubled down, once again dismissing my concerns as exaggeration. However, within days of that denial, another disturbing incident occurred: yet more people were trapped, this time in a lift at Eastgate shopping centre on what was the hottest recorded day of the year.
“That makes two serious lift breakdowns in less than two weeks. Clearly indicating a systemic failure in safety and maintenance procedures.
“In light of these repeated incidents, I conducted a personal inspection of the emergency procedures in place. I entered a lift at Kingswalk and looked for instructions in the event of an emergency.
To my shock, there were no contact numbers, no instructions, and no emergency advice—just a small call button with no clarity on what response, if any, would follow.
“I pressed the button and filmed the entire experience. Ten minutes passed without any response or communication. I exited the lift and searched the premises for security staff—no one was visibly present or responded.
This raises a serious and urgent question of if someone were to become trapped, especially an elderly or vulnerable person, and had no phone signal or assistance, how would they be helped? In hot weather, this situation becomes not just uncomfortable but potentially life-threatening.
“This is not scaremongering. This is a failure of duty by the city council. And the consequence of that failure is that innocent people are continuing to suffer in avoidable situations.
A Gloucester City Council spokesperson said: ”We’d like to send apologies to those affected when a lift at the Eastgate Shopping Centre automatically stopped working for safety reasons when it overheated in the hot weather (July 13).
Engineers attended and were able to reset the controls, enabling it to resume working normally. In view of the continuing warm weather, we are continuing to monitor the situation with all the council’s lifts.”
Source – Gloucestershire live