Elderly residents left freezing at Hemel sheltered housing claims family

Residents at a care home and sheltered housing in Hemel Hempstead were left with no heating multiple times this month amid freezing temperatures.

Martyn Thomas’s grandmother, Thelma, lives at Evelyn Sharp House – but when Martyn and his partner John went to visit, they say she was in a cold room with broken radiators.

John said: “I felt physically sick. My nan is so fragile and her hands were frozen.”

But a spokesperson for Dacorum Borough Council, which runs Evelyn Sharp House says there are no current heating issues there.

They explained: “Heating is supplied at Evelyn Sharp House via a communal heating system maintained by Dacorum Borough Council appointed Heating Engineers Orion. Low heating levels were reported on December 15, Orion attended and diagnosed the issue as a controls fault which was rectified the same day.

“The communal system is fully operational. As residents have started to use the heating system there have been reports of individual radiators not heating or not heating sufficiently all of which have been attended to.

John says the heating issues have been going on for months. He said: “Loads of people have been telling the wardens there and something could have been done in the summer. But nothing's been done.”

The residents’ costs cover the heating, not electricity bills. With the high price of energy, many have not turned on their space heaters. John explained: “And it's not just my nan who is scared of putting her heater on, there’s a load of them.”