Red Kite Community Housing has apologised to one of its residents after their damaged bathroom was left unrepaired for over a year.

Shirley Hawes, 80, who lives in Hithercroft Road in High Wycombe, told the Free Press that her problems began in June 2022 when parts of her bathroom wall had rotted away.

She initially reported the issue to Red Kite which led to a representative from the company visiting her property to take measurements and photos.

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This information was passed on to Gilmartins, a privately-owned contractor and interior fit-out group in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, who repeated the process of visiting the house to take images and measurements.

However, after ‘being passed about between both businesses’, Ms Hawes explained how nothing was done until June this year when her bath was removed to potential asbestos contamination.

This piece of work was conducted by Gilmartins who have since not replaced the outgoing bath - it has since been left abandoned.

Speaking to the Free Press, the pensioner said: “It has been going on and on and I was being passed from one person to another at Red Kite.

“Eventually, this year, they wanted all the information again as all records of this matter had been lost.

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“Once we spoke to someone again, Gilmartins came over to start their work on June 23 where they took out the old bath as they thought they had found asbestos.

“It took two weeks for that to be tested but it later turned out to be a very old plasterboard, and nothing has happened since.

“We’ve been ignored by Red Kite just to say Gilmartins would contact us, but they haven't.

“I have told Red Kite that nothing is happening but I haven't got a reply.

“We have three disabled people here and it is no joke trying to organise everyone to use the downstairs shower room.

“I think 13 months is quite long enough.”

Red Kite has since responded by saying: “To start, we would like to apologise to Ms Hawes and her family that the issue with her bathroom has taken so long to rectify.

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“This is clearly not acceptable and falls way outside our normal time frames.

“Unfortunately, it would seem that a series of miscommunications between us and our contractors has led to failings with the repairs and refurbishment of the bathroom.

“We now have a plan in place to carry out the work as a matter of urgency and have been in touch with Ms Hawes to arrange for this to be completed later this week on Thursday, August 10 and Friday, August 11.

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“Once again, we apologise and would like to reassure Ms Hawes and our tenants that we will be looking further at this case to see how we can learn and improve our service.

“We have also raised this as a formal complaint and will respond directly to our tenant once the investigation is complete.”