CALLS have been made for a town centre lift to be replaced.

The lift, which takes shoppers from Vineyard Street car park into Colchester town centre, has a history of unreliability.

But new pleas have been made for a replacement after a month of problems.

Simon Crow, who stood as a candidate for New Town and Christ Church in the recent council elections, said: “The reason people get so angry is because of the number of times the lift breaks down.

“It’s right by the disabled parking spaces provided for the very people who need it the most.

“It needs replacing. Those steps are long, steep and dangerous if anyone should take a tumble down them.

“The council will say there is no budget to replace it, but before the election when it had a budget surplus of £200,000, it gave it away in its Big Choice.”

However, Mike Lilley, the council’s portfolio holder for safer communities and licensing, claimed the lift had been reliable since 2012.

He said a spate of maintenance problems in the past month was due to changing the external contractor in May for specialist lift repairs.

Mr Lilley added Colchester Borough Homes’ building and maintenance team was working with the council to resolve the problems.

He said: “Unfortunately, the lift is open to the elements but, even worse, open to vandalism.

“It is likely, therefore, to suffer occasionally but the key response to this is regular maintenance and a swift response to any issues and this is what we’re working to resolve.

"The Vineyard Street parking spaces were created when we thought all of the disabled spaces in the High Street were being lost.

“Priory Street does have disabled spaces, but these will be reduced during the forthcoming refurbishment works, and, of course, the access in and out of this car park won’t improve until the whole of the St Botolph’s scheme is implemented.

“The better option for people with disabilities would be St Mary’s, but the only issue is the slightly longer journey into the town centre from the car park."

He also said there is the possibility of creating extra parking for blue badge holders, closer to the town centre, should the problems persist.