An 80 year-old social housing tenant in Wisbech – who suffers from multiple sclerosis – has spent the weekend shivering after engineers failed to turn up to repair her heating system.
It is one of four fresh cases being dealt with by local councillor Virginia Bucknor who today called on MP Steve Barclay to press for a Government inquiry into the Fenland housing scandal.
Scores of tenants have been struggling to get hot water and heating systems repaired following issues with Clarion Housing, who manage the former 4,000 council homes in Fenland.
“You just would not believe it,” said Cllr Bucknor. “It gets even worse.”
Social housing remains one of the main problems in Fenland as the area begins to warm up – if only slightly – following hazardous driving and weather conditions of the past few days.
Campaigner Jayne Abrams said: “Unfortunately this is not new. Clarion and Circle before them knew of all the issues, and totally ignored the plight of their residents.
“If you read the posts on Clarions Facebook page, you can see all the people across their remit suffering on a daily basis, asking for help, and then (surprise, surprise) no-one is answering the pleas for help, no response from them at all on the page.
“It’ll get worse, as usual in these cases, one thing follows another issue. Damp and mould, now heating and hot water, whets next? Electrics? They had the cheek to say that they’ll be doing checks on that, and openly admitted that they should have been doing them every five years.”
The Rev Wendy Thomson, vicar of Chatteris, tweeted; “Is anyone holding Clarion Group to account?
Elsewhere a hardy stall holder was among early arrivals at Wisbech market today – determined to continue to fly the flag for independent trading.
Meanwhile the Light cinema, Wisbech, was forced to cancel all its shows today because of difficulties staff faced in getting into work.
“The safety of customers and staff is paramount so I implore you all to take care if travelling anywhere,” said a statement posted to the cinema’s Facebook page.
“We look forward to opening as usual tomorrow morning. If for any reason this is not the case then we will of course update you.”
For the independent Luxe cinema in the town it was business a usual.
And it was business as usual in Wisbech as The Mart opened this afternoon.
For members of Wisbech Cricket Club there was practice – of sorts – in the snow as they posted a video of today’s efforts!
More updates as we get them
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