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Big freeze makes the blood boil
Heating turned off in elderly residents’ homes
PENNY-PINCHING housing officials switched off the central heating on a Soho estate for five days – despite an icy forecast.
CityWest Homes, the company in charge of social housing in Westminster, has a policy of turning off the heating to 1-6 Dufours Place by May.
Managers in the estate office had promised to keep the heat on – but contractors botched the job.
Friday night temperatures plunged to near freezing – leaving residents in the 72 flats, many elderly and vulnerable, forced to huddle around costly electric heaters.
Residents went to complain on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday – but their flats were still stone cold on Wednesday night.
Alida Baxter, who has a serious spinal condition and was left shivering with sleep deprivation following five arctic nights, called CityWest Home’s estate office a shambles. She said: “It’s hard to imagine now that the sun has come out and we are all warm – but it was a nightmare. I went to speak to the office manager and he told me it was nice and warm in his office so he didn’t believe there could be a problem.
“When I complained to CityWest I was told the lessees’ costs had to be considered – that made my blood boil.”
Ms Baxter’s neighbours in Kemp House, also run by CityWest, the council’s Arms Length Management Organisation, have control of their heating all year round.
She said: “A man died from hypothermia in the block a few years ago – is it really going to take that to happen again before we are allowed to control our own heaters?”
She added: “Life was better when Westminster Council ran the estate.”
Opposition leader councillor Paul Dimoldenberg said the residents had been “extremely badly served” and left in “extreme discomfort”.
He said: “There are a number of serious problems at the Dufours Place flats of which the recent heating fiasco is just the latest. It is high time that CityWest Homes got a grip on the situation and paid attention to the concerns of residents.”
A spokeswoman for CityWest said: “The heating was turned off before the Bank Holiday as we usually turn off the district heating at the end of May.
“In view of the temperatures, it was agreed that it should be turned back on but that did not happen.” |
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