Broken boiler in Cambridge flats leaves families in the cold

Families living in a block of flats say they fear being "left in the cold" over Christmas due to months of problems with a broken boiler.

The issue, in the Clay Farm Centre in Trumpington, Cambridge, left residents feeling "stressed and anxious".

Clay Farm is owned by Cambridge City Council, with the social housing association BPHA acting as landlord.

Labour city councillor Mike Davey said a "full review" of the state of the building was needed.

Both authorities have now apologised.

A new boiler was meant to be in place by 18 November but residents were without hot water over the weekend, they said.

Jade Melville, who has hung a banner outside her flat in protest and said it had further eroded trust between the residents and the two organisations.

She said: "We were promised last week the new boiler would be working by Friday and felt quite positive and ready to put this behind us but Saturday afternoon we realised there was no hot water."

Attempts to contact BPHA and the council over the weekend failed and instead one resident had to call an engineer directly to have the issue resolved, she said.

"It's just starting to feel like we're fighting a losing battle and it's maybe time to start looking for somewhere else to live because I don't think anything is going to change any time soon," she said.

Ms Melville said she felt "stressed and worried" that residents would be "left in the cold" over Christmas if nothing was done.

Engineers visit the flats twice a day to check on and fix any issues with two other boilers which have been working intermittently since problems were reported in June.

Mr Davey, executive councillor for finance, resources and transformation, apologised for the ongoing issues.

"With regards the boiler clearly it's a very sorry tale," he said.

He said the boiler could not currently be connected due to a missing part and they were hoping to have it working by Friday.

"It's our duty and responsibility to ensure that they are having a good, relaxed and appropriate Christmas otherwise we are failing in our duty to the people of Cambridge," he said.

A spokesman for BPHA apologised for a "miscommunication" about the reporting of the issue on Saturday.

"We understand they followed BPHA advice to report the fault directly to the heating contractor, rather than this being done for them. We have spoken to our out of hours service to make sure this does not happen again."

"We understand how inconvenient this is and are sorry for the disruption to our customers," they added.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]