A disabled man was left feeling angry and cold after his heating broke down, only to be told that he was not an emergency.
Ian Beck, 59, who represents Hollingdean tenants at Brighton and Hove City Council housing meetings, called the out-of-hours contact on Tuesday (18 November).
Having been rebuffed, and as the temperatures plummeted, Mr Beck contacted his ward councillors Mohammed Asaduzzaman and Theresa Fowler for help after establishing the thermostat had broken.
He was concerned for his health in the freezing temperatures and also for his elderly friend Des Jones who is staying with him temporarily because of illness.
Mr Beck said: “I called the repairs hotline and was told I wasn’t an emergency, despite I’m registered as disabled. They told me to ring the council the next day which I did.
“I explained everything to them and they said I was an emergency and someone would be around by midday. I had an appointment but cancelled it because the heating engineer was coming out.
“They didn’t turn up at midday. I called out of hours again at 5.30pm and they didn’t have a record of it.
“Some bloke who was very rude to me at the other end of the line said: “What do you expect me to do about it?’”
Mr Beck did not mention that he was a tenant rep until making his third call to the repairs team.
Considering the issues that he had, he was concerned that a tenant who did not know their way around the council systems would struggle.
At 8.10pm on Wednesday (19 November), the heating engineer arrived and the heating worked again.
But unknown to them, the thermostat stopped communicating with the system and his gas heating remained on constantly for 24 hours when he would usually have it on for just a few hours morning and evening.
Mr Beck, who has a prepayment card for gas had to top it up. He usually spends £10 a fortnight but ended up spending £22 in less than a day.
With help from his ward councillors, another emergency visit led to his heating troubles being resolved by Thursday afternoon (20 November).
Mr Beck remains angry at the way that he was spoken to by the out-of-hours team.
He said: “I was in the building trade for 25 years. If one of my employees has spoken to a customer like that, I would have sacked him.”
Labour councillor Gill Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “I can confirm this resident’s heating issues have now been resolved and we have apologised for the problems they experienced.
“The standard of response provided by our out-of-hours contractor fell below the standards we aim to provide and which our residents rightly expect and we will be investigating how this happened.”
Goodness me, what a lame response! This person who was voted into their position and needs to go on an empathy course. They clearly lack it. Shocking.
An appalling story. This also puts the Council in breach of the Equalities Act 2010, for all their lip service to EDI.
The council are also at risk of not meeting their new legal duties under Awaab’s Law. Some bits came into force in October 2025 and other parts in 2026, but broken boilers class as an emergency hazard within the legislation, and it’s worrying to hear that people calling up are being fobbed off.
The tenant should raise a formal complaint and go to the Housing Ombudsman. Shelter should be able to give them legal advice if they want to look into whether the council failed to hear to the new laws which came into force on the 27 October this year: https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/updates_insights_and_impact/awaabs_law_finally_begins_to_take_effect
I am raising a formal complaint. I have been a resident rep for 10 years and know my way around the system . If I can struggle to get this done what chance had an elderly or disabled person who doesn’t know the system.
The emergency “listing” is missing some info, I think that’s where the problem is, not everyone vulnerable is on that listing, needs to be updated.
The problem is with the contractor’s operative. Cancel the payment to them until the situation is sorted and penalise them. I’m sure we wouldn’t have a repetition.
The council has been dreadful at managing and monitoring its contracts for years, just look at the millions they continue to give to Baron Homes and their various companies for temporary accommodation of a very questionable standard. The council always seem to believe Baron Homes account when tenants make reports of problems in the properties. It’s scandalous imo that the council has turned a blind eye for so long and keep lining their pockets with public money.
I’m glad that they are moving TA in-house; partially because of the better oversight.
They are doing some spot purchases to increase housing stock (a good thing which received cross party support I think) but the council still rely heavily on private landlords for temporary accommodation, it’s not being brought ‘in-house’ in the way you suggest – private landlords like Baron Homes still make vast sums of money from the council and that will continue unless the Labour govt and the Labour council has a radical policy shift.
Absolutely, the investment scheme for the first 200 or so homes with £10 million is a stepping stone; with the additional benefit of reducing the per monthly bill on temporary and emergency homing expenditure. There’s the reported additional £40 million to reduce that reliance on private landlords like Baron Homes, a company that will, of course, be working from a for-profit angle.
That feels like a good direction of travel to me.
That remains to be seen. You no me Benjamin. If the council do their jobs I would not have reason to complain.
My issue is with P.H. Jones out of hours staff. B H.C C. did what they could.
Their contractors are paid enormous amounts of public money and not fulfilling their obligations to Residents
Absolutely, you’re right to point this out. Hopefully, we’ll get somewhere with getting more oversight on these services, because clearly – a lack of heating is a priority.
The gas engineer who came to sort my broken heating system out on Tuesday evening after I reported it not working that morning. I felt so sorry for him. He looked absolutely run off his feet and absolutely broken himself, he told me he still had 15 other calls to do after me, before he could go home himself this was out of office hours too when he came to sort mine out.
The workers responsible for attending these repairs and call outs, are doing their best. But, unfortunately the council don’t have in house employees who work with gas. They use a contractor. They can only do what they can do. The contractors are the ones that have the responsibility to decide if a repair is classed as an emergency or not depending on what has been reported.
It’s not fair that this guy was left with a lack of heating and the added cost to his bill that he was unaware of. It sounds like the out of hours call handler was the one that got it wrong with deciding if it was an emergency or not. And in my experience of the emergency repair line, it is that, it’s not a B&H council employee who answer the phone during office hours, the people responding to the emergency repair line for the council aren’t based in Brighton. Where as during office hours it’s answered by a B&H council employee.
I’m glad this guys heating has been sorted. But unfortunately the council can only provide the service with the workmen and women they have on at the time if it’s classed as an emergency. They can’t cut these people in half to get more jobs done, they have to prioritise based on need and vulnerability on a case by case basis. Especially with things like young children and babies. If a household has a baby or young children with no heating then I’m sure they’d get precedence over an adult only household even with illness or disability due to an adult being able to use things like blankets and extra layers to stay warm until the heating can be fixed. A baby or child is a dependent. An adult living alone even with an illness or disability isn’t as dependent as a baby or young child.
And yes, I’m also a vulnerable tenant with a life limiting illness.
I am well aware that the failing is with Council contractors P.H Jones. They get paid a lot of money to fulfill there contractual and legal obligations and are not fit for purpose.
They do not employ enough heating engineers to cope with the workload.
Anyone with half a brain will know that the workload will increase at this time of year.
Ian Beck
Benjamin
“Wow, you’ve really mastered the Google-fu! I’ll have to up my search game.”
You clearly don’t respect the plight faced by Ian Beck .
Your just more interested in trumping on data that you found on your search engine and pass it off as your own so that you feal people are having a conversation with you.
Stop it . Get some help
The irony of a uncharacteristic, well-structured, and clearly AI-generated quip. 🤦
Stop speculating I am raising g a formal complaint about P.H Jones out of ours service.
I had an apology from a faceless housing worker. Jill Mitchell is another council manager who tries to blind residen4s with political bulls**t but too busy to talk to the resident. Namely me Ian beck
I hear you, Ian. I’m sorry Rupert is attempting to derail and misrepresent the conversation. Wishing you all the best with the complaint; it’s important this gets taken seriously. No one should have to fight this hard just to get heating sorted in winter.