4:58pm Thursday 8th January 2009
A MOTHER and her two sons, aged three and four, are living in sub-zero temperatures because of broken boiler.
Kerry Goddard reported it to housing association, A2 Winchester, six weeks ago, but is still waiting for repairs.
Emergency electric heaters, which were supplied by A2, also failed on New Year’s Eve, she said.
She added that she struggled to alert A2 because its Winchester office was shut for the festive holidays until Monday, January 5.
It has coincided the chilliest start to winter in Hampshire since 1996 according to the Met Office.
Miss Goddard, 23, said the boiler was installed soon after she arrived at the two-bedroom house in Octavia Hill, Stanmore, three years ago.
The trainee legal secretary added that it broke down the previous winter, before failing again six weeks ago.
She said engineers tried to fix it in December but uncovered several faults. She added that they wanted to replace it, but A2 Winchester delayed in agreeing to buy a new one.
She said: “Now we’ve got no kind of heating at all, and it’s getting really cold.
“I’m taking the children to my mum’s place for baths, but there isn’t enough room there for the three of us to stay.”
She added that her younger son, Jack, who is brother to Tyler, has asthma, which was not helped by the cold air.
She asked her local Winchester City Councillor, Lucille Thompson, to lobby A2 on her behalf.
Cllr Thompson said: “I feel that she’s been treated really appallingly because this started at the back end of November and she is still waiting now.”
An A2 spokeswoman said: “We are deeply concerned about the service that Miss Goddard has received from us.
“We arranged for her boiler to be inspected on 29 December 2008, but unfortunately the engineer was unable to attend and Miss Goddard was not informed – a clear breakdown in communication.
“We also provided her with temporary heaters and £50 for the electricity key meter, but this also failed to alleviate the problem.
“We have not managed the situation at all well, particularly over the Christmas period when the boiler failed completely when she should have been treated as a priority.
“Equally the problems with the boiler and the temporary heaters should have been highlighted to us by our contractors so that a proper and speedy evaluation of the situation could be made.
“However, every effort has been made to rectify this error and the new boiler will be installed.”
She added that the boiler was due to be installed before the end of the week.
She said: “We will be investigating why our service failed in this instance, and we will be writing to Miss Goddard in due course to offer our sincere apologies and compensation for service failure in accordance with our policies.”
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