Residents turn up the heat at freezing flats

Residents at St. Margaret's Gardens, Hollinwood complaining about heating costs. Pic shows Julie Baker (standing, centre).

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SHELTERED housing residents are dreading the cold winter nights after it emerged they were paying £8 a day for sub-standard heating.

Retired folk at St Margaret’s Gardens, in Vicarage Street, Hollins, claim they have lived with “old fashioned” electric heating for many years at the Riverside-run scheme for the over-55s.

They say they were promised a new and improved heating system last year in time for this February, but have not heard any further from the management team. The flats are fitted with storage heaters which heat up overnight and switch off in the morning. The heat, most residents say, does not last past mid-afternoon.

They also claim that another Riverside property in Ashton — Emmanuel Court — has been fitted with new gas heating.

Julie Baker (55), who has lived at St Margaret’s Gardens for three years, says most residents can’t afford to leave the heating on all day.

“In winter, the bills can be upto £600 per quarter,” she said. “Half the residents have had meters installed.”

Ms Baker was unaware of the heating system when she first moved in and was left with a hefty bill.

The grandmother-of-four, who used to work at Park Cake Bakeries, said: “We’ve got old-fashioned heaters — they date back to Noah’s Ark. It costs £8 a day to have the heating on.

“It’s tempting to leave them on but if I did, I know I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay my bills. It has been like this for years.

“The communal lounge is not too bad. If you want to keep warm you can go in there, but you want to be able to stay in your own home.

“Everybody here has got problems with health — I’ve got osteoporosis. We need our heating.”

John Knox (66), a former fridge fitter said he spends most of the time in the lounge as his flat is too cold to entertain his family when they visit.

He said: “Apart from being expensive, they’re not fit for purpose. I spend nearly all my day in the lounge because it’s the only place that’s warm.

“As the day goes on the heat gets less and less. By the time it’s 3pm, we don’t have it anymore. It doesn’t make sense.”

Mr Knox said a surveyor visited the place and told them that new windows and heating were needed.

Michael and Christine Glenny, who have lived in the flats for nearly six years, had a meter put in last week as they could not afford to pay for their heating.

Mr Glenny (71), a retired engineer, said: “It has always been cold here. I put £5 in the meter and and it lasted four hours.”

Mrs Baker added: “If it gets cold in winter we might bring sleeping bags and sleep here in the lounge.”

In the response to the comments made by residents, James Hill, Riverside director of property strategy, said: “We take all customer concerns seriously in order to maintain the quality of our retirement housing in the area.

“There have been no identified failures associated with the electric storage heater system at St Margaret’s Gardens in Oldham but we will be carrying out an inspection of all individual apartments at the scheme in the coming weeks.”