An 80-year-old woman is without heating this weekend after engineers from a housing association failed to fix her boiler.
The woman is a tenant of Clarion Housing living in sheltered housing in March and her daughter says her mum is having “the most awful time”.
The daughter told CambsNews: “Basically they keep botching an old boiler.
“This is not the first time she has been left with no heating over a weekend.
“This time they came out to her on Friday and said she needs a new circuit board, and they do not have any so she will have to wait.
“She was told Clarion would give her a fan heater, but she explained she is COPD and asthmatic so cannot tolerate fan heaters on her chest.
“They left her with ‘well it’s that or nothing’
“She’s 80 with other health issues too and nobody seems to care”.
The woman’s home is in Morton Avenue.
Her daughter said: “And the thing is she actually has to pay extra because it is actually classed as sheltered housing, but they do nothing to help them at all.
“She has had an horrendous fight on her hands ever since moved in there.
“I wanted to have her here with me for the weekend whilst she waited but she can’t manage the stairs too well.”
Sally Greetham, head of operations for Clarion, assured Fenland Council this week that repairs and maintenance was a vital part of their service.
Clarion manages over 4,300 homes in Fenland, and she told the council’s overview and scrutiny committee that emergency repairs were dealt with in 24 hours – general repairs within 28 days.
She said that previously “we had some challenges with our gas contractor; I am pleased to say we do not have those same challenges today.
“We’ve got a really good contractor that we’ve worked with now for a few years and we’re happy with the service that we’re getting from them.”
Clarion checked electrical systems periodically “as well as other things like asbestos, lifts.
She assured councillors that day-to-day repairs “are obviously undertaken and any sort of ad hoc repairs they need doing and they either classified as emergency repairs that get done within 24 hours and we have managed to do about 99 pc of all emergencies within 24 hours.
“Anything that is not emerging is classified as general repairs and their target for that is 28 days so that is everything else.
“We’ve got a new phone line recently which has helped customers to get through in a dedicated frame.”
Clarion has also introduced a new system “which means that customers can report things online which means they can book it online they can track it online and again that’s been really well received.”
Ms Greetham also explained some of the background to their sheltered homes to the committee.
Ms Greetham said that sheltered housing was an issue not just for Clarion but for other housing associations.
“It’s the same on all of our sheltered housing and again when we speak to other housing associations, they’re also seeing slightly less demand for this sort of accommodation.”
She said there were “currently undertaking a full review” to decide the right model going forward. It was important to find out what customers want “and can we change anything to address that”.
