Mon 5 Oct 2020, 03:41 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Bob Edwards, Harlow Labour Party member
Over four years ago I had four visits to my little one-bedroom council flat on the third floor of a tower-block, by a council official, to persuade me that I needed a new heating and hot-water system. I would have a hot air blower, lovely after a bath or shower.
What finally convinced me was that I was told that if I didn’t agree then the whole block wouldn’t be able to change – because we were all in a linked system. I found out recently that in fact this wasn’t true. Four years later, I now have no hot water, unless I use an expensive immersion-heater, and no heating, unless I use an expensive electric fire. Our ‘privatised’ council maintenance department, apparently, aren’t doing any ‘inside’ (or outside) jobs during the lockdown.
So, at 76, I face winter without heating or hot water. Age UK is livid! Ironically, HTS, the privatised council maintenance service, insisted on checking my gas by forcing an entrance and threatening me with eviction, when there had been no smell of gas, no gas heating or hot water.
I am now very angry, with my tenancy rights being violated, and lockdown as the excuse. Our ‘Labour’ councillors do nothing to help. They think HTS is a wonderful company and they get a block grant from the Housing Account.
Bring back in-house repairs and council Direct Works departments!
