THE Wiltshire Times has leapt to the aid of a pensioner who has waited nine months for a broken wall to be repaired.

Elsie Carter, of Trenchard Way, Bowerhill, was reduced to tears on several occasions after West Wiltshire Housing Society failed to re-build a garden wall damaged by a car in January.

Mrs Carter, 85, who suffers from osteoporosis, an irregular heartbeat and arthritis said: "The housing society has treated me shamefully. I have been driven out of my mind over this. The surveyor came and looked at it on the day it happened but he has not been since."

Left in a heap for months, the wall soon became a haunt for children, who threw bricks on to the street.

"The kids used to get in and play with the bricks. I used to sit in my living room and cry," Mrs Carter said.

The wall was partly rebuilt in May, but left without coping stones on, leaving it open to weather damage. After countless phone calls in which she said she was fobbed off with excuses, Mrs Carter was told it would be done by Friday.

"The weekend's come and gone and there has been no phone call. They are cowboys," Mrs Carter said.

After a phone call from the Wiltshire Times, the housing society admitted mistakes had been made.

A spokesman said: "Subject to weather it will be done by the end of the week. It's a priority for us to get it done."