AN elderly widow from Quidhampton is still waiting for her bungalow to be knocked down and rebuilt, nearly a year after she was moved into temporary council accommodation.

Doreen Ascough (80) was moved to a bungalow in Victoria Road, Wilton, last August, after Salisbury district council told her work on her home in Coronation Square, Quidhampton, was imminent.

But ten months later Mrs Ascough is still waiting to take her possessions out of storage and move back to her home of 20 years.

She said: "I've been fighting with the council for five years to try and pull our bungalows down because they are so cold in there.

"Then last year the council came up to my house and said to me if you move out, or we find you a place and you move out, that will give us a chance to get things going quicker.

"So I said all right and I found a place.

"They said I would be out for six months and then back in.

"That was August and they told me I would be back in by March. But now we're into June and they haven't even started."

Mrs Ascough said she had tried speaking to the council to find out when work might start, but that they were unable to give her an answer.

"The first excuse I got was that the council's planning permission hadn't gone through," said Mrs Ascough.

"Then the next excuse was that the land hadn't been transferred, then the builders pulled out and so it goes on and on and on.

"I was told I would be out for six months and I should have gone back in March, but I'm still waiting.

"Why do they keep telling me all these excuses?

"It just makes me ill and I haven't been able to sleep because I have been so upset."

Salisbury district council told the Journal that work to replace the bungalows in Coronation Square with three new chalets would begin next week.

Kate Entwistle, lead officer of development and private sector services at the council, said: "We are due to start demolition on Monday and Mrs Ascough is going to be able to go and watch.

"Work will probably then start on the site a couple of weeks after demolition and clearance.

"She should hopefully be back in her house by July next year at the latest."