Greg Falconer with his partner, Nicola Austin, and their daughter, Elizabeth Austin-Falconer, have had their hot water system fixed... thanks to The Press

A FAMILY who lived without hot water for nearly a month have had their boiler fixed thanks to The Press.

Greg Falconer and Nicola Austin live in a council flat in Lucas Avenue, Clifton, York, with their 21-month-old daughter, Elizabeth.

Nicola is more than five months pregnant and yet they had been left living without any hot water, for three-and-a-half weeks despite repeatedly asking the council for help.

The couple claim they complained to City of York Council on numerous occasions, but discovered messages had not been passed on and the work to fix their broken boiler was not done.

They came to The Press in desperation in a bid to get the boiler fixed and within 36 hours the council had sent out a team to fix their immersion heater.

City of York Council has apologised to the family for their trouble and will be checking the procedures for logging faults in the future.

Greg, a bar supervisor at a bingo hall, said: "I was furious with the council. We went in time and again to report the problem only to have no one come out. We got back to the offices in Library Square only to be told they had no record of the original complaints.

"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing and then finally I told them I was going to The Press.

"Then within 36-hours a team of workmen descended on the place and the work was done in two days.

"Before the work was done we were spending £60 a week on electricity, boiling up water on the stove and in the kettle just to keep clean and get washed."

Mr Falconer said the boiler had broken before and they had had a catalogue of problems going back over a nine-month period.

A City of York Council spokeswoman, said: "Unfortunately, the repair call was logged as non-urgent and was therefore not treated with the urgency it required.

"Ms Austin's immersion heater has now been replaced, but we apologise for the delay and the inconvenience this has caused and will be checking our procedures to ensure that faults are appropriately logged in the future."

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11:15am Wednesday 26th March 2008

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