'I want my heating fixed once and for all'

A pensioner has said she has been struggling without heating on and off for six years since the council changed her gas heater to an air source heat pump.

Tina Williams, 70, from Reading, is registered disabled and said she wanted someone to fix it "once and for all".

She said Reading Borough Council had tried to fix it, but it always stopped working a few days later.

On Wednesday the council said: "A member of our Housing team has spoken to the resident this afternoon and arranged for the contractor to return to the property today as a matter of urgency."

Ms Williams said: "I've been accused of fiddling with it.

"I've had so many different contractors - they come, they fiddle, it then works for a few days and then it stops working.

"It's just back to square one, all the time."

The air source heat pump was installed by the council in 2018 and Ms Williams said there had problems with it ever since.

When it failed she said she used an electric blanket to keep warm, but sometimes when it was too cold she opted to go to bed early.

She said: "In this day and age, you should be warm in your own house.

"I don't think I should be treated like this, it's just ridiculous."

Following the latest outage, the authority said the work had "now been completed - the heating and the hot water systems are functioning correctly", but the heater stopped working later that night.

"It's just the same old thing they come they fiddle with it they say it is fixed I just knew from the bottom of my stomach that this is going to happen again," she said.

"I'm 70 I want to be in my flat and get up in the night and go to the toilet [and] it's going to be warm."

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