"Racecourse Estate" residents are taking to task the housing association responsible for it over the state of their housing estate in Sale.

Jill Kee, a resident of Kempton Avenue for around 10 years and the housing estate for around 40 years, set up a petition last month.

Ms Kee said Irwell Valley Homes, a housing association with thousands of homes across Greater Manchester, is not taking on its responsibilities on the "Racecourse Estate", a nickname for the Sale West Estate, in particular in terms of its maintenance of overgrown open spaces.

She set up a petition with the aim of sending it to them to ask for answers and at the time of writing there are more than 200 signatures.

(Image: Newsquest)

Ms Kee told The Messenger: "Everyone on social media is talking about the state of the estate.

"Some people are paying service charges. They cannot afford to pay them but they have to pay them because it is in their contract but what are they paying for if there is no service?"

"We want them to cut back and clean up the communal areas to make it safer for the residents. 

"At night time would you want to walk through it? Because I would not want to walk through it."

(Image: Newsquest)

Built in the 1960s as a council estate, the Sale West Estate came under the control of Irwell Valley Homes in 2000 after a transfer of ownership from Manchester City Council.

At the time the housing association took on a multi-million-pound programme of investment into improvements and, recently, it is taking on another programme of regeneration.

Ceris Esplen, an executive director at Irwell Valley Homes, said: "We are sorry for the issues with the start of the grass-cutting season on the Sale West Estate. We understand the impact of these issues on our customers and we are working to bring the area back up to standard as soon as possible.

"We raised our concerns with our contractor, Goulds, and worked with them on a schedule to bring the areas back up to standard. Last week they focused on larger areas of grass and this week they will be focused on the smaller areas of grass. Our own estates team will be helping with this."

Ms Esplen said there are weekly meetings with the contractor to track the progress of the plan.

There are weekly updates from the housing association to its customers on the housing estate too.

Ms Esplen said: "To ensure customers get the services covered by their service charges, we extended the grass-cutting season to ensure all cuts covered by the contract are carried out.

"Although rubbish collection and fly-tipping are the responsibility of the local authority, our estates team attend to clear fly-tipping from the land we own there. We know this is another important issue for our customers and we continue to work with our partners and residents to improve the situation through responsive action, education and enforcement."

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.