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NIHE restores maintenance services after van hijacking
Northern Ireland’s housing authority’s heating and maintenance contractors were pulled from parts of Derry this week after one of their vans was hijacked.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), which owns around 85,000 homes across the country, took the step amid major security alerts following a car bomb explosion on Saturday night.
A van driven by a NIHE contractor was hijacked by masked men on Monday, with services withdrawn from the Bishop Street, Brandywell, Creggan, Rosemount and Rossville areas of the city later that day.
Services were restored across Derry on Wednesday morning.
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In a statement on Tuesday, the NIHE said: “Following the hijacking of a van belonging to one of our contractors yesterday and a number of similar incidents last night [Monday], our maintenance and heating contractors withdrew their services on the city side.
“The Housing Executive takes these matters very seriously, the protection and safety of people who work for us is paramount.
“We apologise to our tenants for this suspension of service however, given the circumstances, this decision is unavoidable.”
The contractor has not been identified.
According to the Derry Journal, the NIHE contractor van was hijacked by three men in the Circular Road area of Derry at around 11.30am on Monday, with the vehicle later destroyed in a controlled explosion by the army.
A van belonging to the Royal Mail was also hijacked on Monday – leading the service to halt deliveries to parts of Derry.
Detectives said the vehicle involved in Saturday’s explosion appeared to have been hijacked from a delivery driver a short time before the explosion.
Gary Middleton, Democratic Unionist Party MLA for Foyle, told reporters following a meeting with police on Tuesday: “Disruption to basic services that people in those communities would expect continues to be disrupted, and the message to those people who carry out those attacks is that you are hurting your very own people.”
