ANGRY residents in two council tower blocks say they have been left without heating or hot water for weeks.

Residents of Dudeney Lodge and Nettleton Court in Hollingdean, Brighton, say some have had continuous problems and for others it has been intermittent.

But they said they were unable to get through to anyone at the city council who could help and were not given an emergency supply of temporary heaters.

Graham Ennis, 75, a resident of Dudeney Lodge for 15 years, said: “I’ve had no hot water or heating for a month.

“There have been problems since the old boiler was replaced two years ago and there are elderly residents here.

“We are really fed up and have had enough of incompetent housing officials who just talk piffle at you about what they will do, but it doesn’t happen.”

On Tuesday, 30 residents met Tracey Hill, deputy chairwoman of Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing committee, Martin Reid, the council’s head of housing strategy, and Grant Hayward, commercial contracts manager for K&T Heating, the council’s heating repairs contractor.

There was no representative from Mears Housing Management, the company responsible for the call centre connecting residents to K&T Heating.

Mr Hayward addressed the issue of contacting services out of hours when heating was down and said: “Mears should be passing jobs on to K&T and then we should offer temporary heating for the weekend.

“I have let the phone calls slide and I fully accept that. I have not been in the office as I had to be on site.

“I will catch up with missed calls, but I do apologise for this.”

Mr Hayward said these were the only high-rise flats in Brighton with a communal boiler plant and Mr Reid admitted there were “fundamental issues with the plant room”.

Residents also raised concerns over how much water they were wasting while waiting for taps to run hot and sediment in the water.

Cllr Hill said: “The heating and hot water should all be back up and running now.

“When people phone in to report that they have no heating, they should be offered a temporary heater at that time. This hasn’t always been happening quickly enough, so an immediate action from the meeting was to sort out communications so everyone is offered a temporary heater straight away.

“There are temporary heaters stored at lots of different locations across the city.”