HUNDREDS of pounds of taxpayers' cash has been spent on at least 24 failed attempts to fix a door, leaving elderly residents at the end of their tether.
Despite a locksmith being called out on no fewer than two dozen occasions over the past 12 months, the front door at Juniper Court in Beech Avenue, Brentwood, has still not been fixed.
It means that instead of feeling safe behind a properly locking door, the elderly and sometimes frail tenants live with constant anxiety about who is able to stroll unhindered into the brown-brick building.
Joan Nibbs, 85, has lived in the Brentwood Borough Council-owned sheltered accommodation for the past seven years.
She said: "The door is totally insecure and anyone can just walk in. It hasn't worked for ages.
"I don't know what the problem has been, I think the council's biggest fear was having to possibly cut keys for each resident.
"Residents are very concerned that we could get broken into at any point and we are always having to make a deliberate point of locking our flats to make sure no one can walk into them."
Mrs Nibbs said she had lost faith in the council due to its inability to successfully repair the door.
Tony Read, 67, has lived at Juniper Court for the past five years.
"The council keep coming down to fix the door but they keep messing it up," he said.
"The last time it was broken was for three days.
"After all the call-outs, they could have bought a new one. The whole thing is ridiculous."
Malcolm Knights, head of housing at Brentwood Borough Council, said: "We have made several repairs over the last few months to the lock on the external door at Juniper Court.
"These special locks are complex and expensive so we make every effort to mend them in order to avoid the greater cost of replacement.
"However, repairs in this case have been unsuccessful and so a new lock is being fitted in the next few days.
"The door is not being replaced and residents will be able to use their existing keys with the new lock."
