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Our regular Thursday night surgery brought yet another instance of council cock-up!
A tenant who lives in a bed-sit was due to get a transfer into a one bedroomed flat - and he was really looking forward to this.
One Tuesday a few weeks ago, he came back from work to find a letter that had been posted the previous day inviting him to view a one-bedroomed flat on that Tuesday. He had left for work around 7 am, before the postman had delivered so knew nothing about the appointment.
He contacted the Council on the Wednesday and made arrangements to view the flat a few days later - he was told that there would not be a council officer able to show him round as they were short staffed, but he could come in a collect the key and have a look on his own.
He duly picked up the keys from the council office and went to the flat. On opening the envelope, he found that they keys were for a totally different flat - a bed-sit!
When he returned the keys to the council office, the staff told him that they wondered where those keys and gone ... but they could not find the keys to the flat they were offering him.
He was told that they would contact him when the keys were to hand.
This was two weeks ago. So today he contacted the council just to see what was happening. He was told that the flat had now been offered to someone else.
He came to us for the telephone number of our MP, Tess Kingham. He left not only with the telephone number, but also after speaking on the telephone with one of our ward councillors, who said he found the situation as beyond belief, just like we do!
The saga of the suited locks and the key continues. The Housing office asked if we could organise a couple of key fobs for a tenant who had had her handbag stolen.
We told them that we would be only too pleased to do this for them, but we did not have a key to the suited locks that protected the door entry mechanism.
Mind you, we did have one! But we lent it to a contractor working for Gloucester City Services and commissioning the door entry system. This contractor failed to return the key - the fact being reported to Gloucester City Services, who promised to replace it.
We are still waiting. But when the housing office contacted Gloucester City Services to check on the progress of the return of the key, they promptly denied any knowledge of the matter.
Despite this, a key was "borrowed" from somewhere by Housing and we were able to activate a couple of key fobs this evening and the tenant can now get into her block!