Corby family living in a Premier Inn after boiler breaks and pipes burst

Amanda Mackie of Leighton Road, Corby, has a daughter aged 15 who is about to sit her GCSEs and an eight-year-old son who is disabled.

The family have been council tenants for 15 years and on February 26 their boiler suddenly stopped working, leaving them without heating and hot water.

Despite repeated calls to the council, no engineer arrived.

When someone finally came out they arrived while Amanada was on the school run, which she had told them to avoid, and dropped a card through the letter box.

On March 2 after the heating and hot water had been off for nearly a week, a frozen pipe burst, flooding the house and destroying some of the family’s possessions.

While Amanda and her neighbours tried to budge the frozen stopcock outside her house, an engineer finally arrived at the flooded house two and a half hours later.

Corby Council found the family an emergency room in the Premier Inn.

Amanda said: “We have a double and two single beds but no fridge or cooking facilities.

“We’re having to eat out because we have nowhere to prepare food and I’m having to use the launderette to wash all our clothes. I’m a full-time carer so I don’t have the money for this. It’s a joke.

“My daughter is doing her GCSEs and I’m worried it’s going to affect her.

“I can’t afford to move my stuff to storage so it’s still in the house. It’s having a big impact on my kids.”

Amanda was offered a maisonette in Angus House in the town centre but she cannot easily get her son up and down the stairs to the accommodation so she says it is completely inappropriate for her needs.

Her son was born with microcephaly which means he suffers from a range of disabilities. He attends a special school in Corby.

A Corby Council spokeswoman said: “When unfortunate situations arise in our housing stock such as floods our absolute priority is to ensure that the residents of the household are moved someone safe and suitable.

“In the first instance we will look to utilise our own housing stock, however on some occasions when this is not possible, we do have to use hotels.

“In any situation where we have to move our tenants we do of course pay for their moving, their accommodation and freeze their rent account.

“We are aware that the work at Ms Mackie’s property is nearing completion and our officers will be in contact with her early next week to give her a completion date and discuss moving back in.

“Due to the recent extreme adverse weather spells we have seen a huge rise in demand for maintenance and repairs.

“Just from February 28 to March 4 we had a 450 per cent increase in out-of-hours calls in regards to heating alone, so we understand that there has been a huge pressure put on our contractors.

“However, we will be addressing these issues with them directly.”