HN helps family get cold flat action

Jenna Burton, her partner William Ross and baby Hailie in the frozen flat.

HN Action has triumphed again – this time for an Inverness couple and their newborn baby who have been living in a frozen council flat.

Jenna Burton and William Ross told HN Action before Christmas how they feared for the health of their daughter Hailie as they shivered in a house so cold the tot could not be undressed and weighed by a health visitor.

The health visitor also voiced serious concerns about the low temperature at their Glenurquhart Road property – and called on Highland Council to help.

But now, after the HN got involved in the case, Highland Council has pledged to act.

It is the second such success for HN Action.

Last week, Lewis Forbes (21) and Ashley MacLennan (20) thanked the Highland News for helping them secure alternative accommodation after they were living in squalor due to the damp and mould in the flat they had been allocated. After we highlighted their plight at a flat in Murray Terrace, Smithton, they couple were offered a new property by Highland Council.

In the latest case involving Jenna and William, the council confirmed it was set to carry out work.

A council spokesperson said: "We have agreed to install replacement storage and panel heaters and to draught proof the windows of the property, and will do so as soon as access to the property has been reached."

William (22) previously told how he had been fighting for more than a year to get a solution to the problem.

At the beginning of 2010, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP Danny Alexander told him the council had said it would upgrade the flat’s heating.

But by December, when the work had yet to be carried out, the couple came to the Highland News to highlight their situation. They claimed they could not afford to heat their home due to outdated storage heaters and drafty single-glazed windows.

Jenna (18) claimed it was costing them £4 a day to use the living room storage heater alone.

Just before Christmas, the family showed the Highland News a letter in which the health visitor told the housing department of her concerns for the family.

In the letter, the health visitor stated: "When I visited, the house was extremely cold – so cold that I did not weigh the new baby Hailie as she would have had to have been undressed.

"Hailie is already showing signs of having a cold and I have instructed the family to contact their GP if they are worried about her health. As the house is cold and damp, this may exacerbate any common viral illnesses, leading to respiratory difficulties, especially in a young baby."

The health visitor said she had serious concerns regarding the lack of heating, and also raised the issue of fire safety, with using the halogen heater so close to bedding.

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