Paul Hindley was a councillor with an office at the Weatherfield Town Hall. In 1988, he made arrangements to retire and rehouse Percy Sugden, and hire a replacement caretaker for the Community Centre. When Percy failed to respond to three letters from Hindley, he was summoned to a meeting at the Town Hall, where Hindley told him the news in person. At first Percy dismissed the issue, but when he was told that he had two weeks to vacate the Community Centre flat and that alternative accommodation had been found for him, he took the matter more seriously, but was no less indignant, making a dig at civil servants and council procedure.
A week later, Hindley and Deirdre Barlow negotiated with Percy when he locked up the centre in protest of his "sacking". As Percy had refused to live in the tower block where he was being rehoused, he had barricaded himself in the flat until the council changed its mind. By this point, Hindley was losing patience with Percy and banged on the door to get his attention. Percy let the pair in when they told him they had good news, although it wasn't quite what he'd hoped for - Hindley had got him a ground floor flat in Rosamund Street, remarking to Percy that he had to pull some strings to do so. Percy was still unsatisfied, on the grounds that a street-level flat would attract trouble-making children from Bessie Street School, and accused them of putting a "rattled old donkey" out to pasture. Nevertheless, he agreed to take the flat once the renovations were complete, and dumped himself on Emily Bishop in the meantime.