Grandad's car damaged by wet cement as building work continues near South Shields home

Mark Steele, outside his home, which is next to the scaffolding which has now been covered.

For the last six weeks, Mark Steele says he has been plagued by problems due to Keepmoat Homes building next to his property in Garden Gate Drive, Laygate, South Shields.

His garden fence was removed to make way for scaffolding as work began. However, no barriers were placed on the end of the structure, and all sorts of debris has fallen onto his drive.

Now, Keepmoat chiefs have promised to only build while Mr Steele, a commercial gas engineer, is at work and have agreed to pay for the damages.

But the 51-year-old says it is too little, too late.

He said: “I’ve had weeks of problems, mainly caused due to a lack of barriers on the end of the scaffolding so everything has been dropping off onto my drive and car.

“I asked if their workers wore hard hats on the site and got told yes - but we weren’t given any and there’s been stones and everything showering down.

“I’ve been without a car for five weeks as it’s covered in cement. I’ve not had an apology, offer of compensation, nothing.”

The first problem Mr Steele had with his Nissan 350z was clipping scaffolding erected after his fence was moved, causing an initial £300 damage.

But then his car was covered in dry cement and dust, before being splattered with the wet cement which subsequently dried on the vehicle while Mr Steele was away in Birmingham.

He then contacted the Health and Safety Executive about his issues and says last week barriers were finally installed onto the scaffolding.

A Keepmoat Homes spokesman said: “We have spoken to Mr Steele regularly since he raised the original issue with us earlier this month. We can confirm that Keepmoat Homes has agreed to pay for the repair to Mr Steele’s vehicle and that payment to the garage has now been made.

“Following the initial contact, we immediately addressed the issue with our contractor who erected the barricade on the scaffolding. Since then our site manager has been in touch with Mr Steele to review works and to confirm that work could continue during the day while he was at work.

“We would like to apologise to Mr Steele for the issues he has experienced, any distress caused and the time it has taken to rectify them.”