GAS firm Transco has admitted a catalogue of errors suffered by a 73-year-old Highworth woman during pipe-laying.

It pledged to do all it could to help Jean Snuggs after the Evening Advertiser stepped in on her behalf.

Mrs Snuggs, a retired cigarette factory worker who lives in Folly Drive, said she had suffered great stress as a result of what happened.

Since the work to replace pipes began last month, her problems have included:

l Having her telephone cable cut within half an hour of work beginning, and not restored for 24 hours.

l Her front garden wall being undermined and collapsing.

l Her hedge apparently being partially burned with a misdirected heating tool being used by the Transco crew.

l Being told on one day that her gas supply would be turned off while work was carried out, and that it would be restored by a gas man at 6pm. When the gas man failed to turn up, Mrs Snuggs called Transco and says her supply was eventually reconnected at 10pm.

lSuffering an unexpected loss of her gas fire's pilot light as recently as Thursday, she was told by a Transco adviser on the phone to turn her supply off at the meter for safety's sake. Then another Transco gas man who came to restore the supply told her he could not say why her pilot light had gone out because she had switched off her supply.

Mrs Snuggs said: "Transco have completely stressed me out it has been one thing after another."

Mrs Snuggs added that she was alerted to the fact that her wall had collapsed by the Transco staff member who came to explain why the firm had failed to restore her gas supply until 10pm when it had promised it would be on again by 6pm.

Transco spokeswoman Gill Dickinson said: ""We are very sorry that Mrs Snuggs has been on the receiving end of rather a catalogue of incidents, but it is very rare for this sort of thing to happen.

"We are in touch with Mrs Snuggs, and she has the mobile telephone number of one of our senior managers.

"Now that we know we will not have to do any more work outside her property, we are going to contact her to arrange a mutually convenient time for us to rebuild her garden wall."

Barrie Hudson