Michelle Donelan has criticised housing providers GreenSquareAccord for failing to deal with issues in their tenants’ homes after one mother was left without hot water for 38 days.

The Chippenham MP received over ten times more complaints about GreenSquareAccord than all other housing associations in her constituency combined over the last two years, her office told this newspaper.

183 Chippenham constituents have complained about GreenSquareAccord to Mrs Donelan since the start of 2021, while just 14 have written to her about Aster, Sovereign and Stonewater.

One of those constituents was Nikita Dobson of Skylark Road in Melksham, who was left without hot water for over a month in November, 2021.

She said: “GreenSquare came out to fix the boiler only for it to go again 24 hours later. We were left with no heating or hot water because they refused to come out when we had a sickness bug.

“Then they kept saying they didn’t have the parts and messing us around and it took 38 days just to fix the boiler.

“It was hell… we were told to fill the bath up with water from a kettle. I was given compensation but I’m not happy it was left that long because it’s disgusting. I’ve got an autistic son and mental health issues and it was a nightmare.”

GreenSquareAccord claimed they tried to fix the boiler multiple times but were unable to due to coronavirus in the household or nobody being home.

Wendy Morgan, also a Michelle Donelan constituent, was left with no hot water from her kitchen tap from September to December due to cancelled appointments.

She added: “I was advised to get hot water from my bathroom tap and carry it in a bowl… it was very upsetting. They don’t really know what they are doing.”

GreenSquareAccord attributed the wait to unavailability and coronavirus in the household.

Mrs Donelan said: “I receive more complaints about GreenSquareAccord than any other housing association combined and then multiplied.

“Heating and hot water becomes increasingly vital as the weather gets cold. Many social housing residents worry at this time of year because of how long it can take to get their boiler fixed if it breaks.

“Please contact your MP if GreenSquareAccord is not fixing your heating. Following the tragic and avoidable death in Rochdale that was a direct result of mould, your housing association must take these complaints seriously and resolve them before more people die.”

A GreenSquareAccord spokesperson said: “We’re sorry to hear about the problems some of our customers are having. The safety and wellbeing of our customers is our top priority.

“We are sorry that some of our customers have had to wait longer than usual to have repairs completed. Like most housing providers, we are still dealing with a backlog of repairs which was built up during the pandemic, when we were not able to attend customers’ homes for months at a time.

“We have made significant progress, cutting our backlog from 5,500 to 2,500 repairs in the last year alone. We have been prioritising the most urgent jobs and we continue to do all we can to work through it.

“We have also improved our processes to make sure we are able to get through a higher volume of repairs and that we complete more repairs the first time when we visit our customers’ homes.”

Mrs Donelan said that new legislation will target housing associations that fail their tenants.

She added: “Social Housing Landlords fail their tenants all too often. As a government, we will be toughening up regulation through the Social Housing Regulation bill. This will allow the Housing Regulator to take action and then bill the landlord afterwards.

“I will continue to protect tenants from irresponsible landlords.”