Hyde Housing tenants on Packington estate: Emma Collings, Rushia Roshid, Nicki Francis, Aimee Ritchie and Michelle Green

TENANTS who went months without heating and hot water have been left outraged after their housing association offered them only £64 in compensation.

Hyde Housing apologised in April for the “intermittent issues” residents of Packington estate had experienced since before Christmas, but on Saturday sent a letter telling tenants they would have just over £60 deposited into their rent accounts to make up for the “inconvenience”.

“It’s just an insult,” said Emma Collings, who told the Tribune she had been forced to put her tumble dryer on just to heat up her house for her young children during the cold winter months.

Nicki Francis, whose family was left “freezing cold” during the outages, agreed, saying: “I think someone should have come round, and given us the courtesy of a face-to-face conversation after everything we’ve been through.”

She said: “I had to contact Hyde when it was minus degrees because I had no heating or hot water. Hyde said to me they weren’t going to supply any heating. I went out and spent money that I didn’t have, I had to borrow money to buy heaters.”

Rushia Roshid, another resident on the estate, added: “We’ve got seven people in our family, and we had no hot water or heating. It would take about six kettles just to fill up two buckets so you can wash. With seven people, that’s a lot of kettles.”

The tenants added that the lack of communication from Hyde Housing had left them frustrated.

“You’re on the phone with them for hours and hours,” said Michelle Green, who lives in a two-bedroom flat on the estate.

“When there’s a problem, we don’t know who to contact, who’s our housing officer, we don’t know anything,” explained Aimee Ritchie, who was told to put her bath on “really slow” if she wanted hot water during the outages.

Other residents on the Packington estate have by contrast been offered £500 in compensation.

“I don’t know where they’ve plucked these figures from,” said Ms Ritchie. “It’s just crazy. I’m not going to be greedy, but if others are getting £500, we should get £500. We should all have the same. It’s an insult.”

A spokesperson for Hyde Housing said: “Due to a significant leak which affected the communal system at Packington earlier this year, some customers unfortunately experienced intermittent issues with their heating and hot water. We know that this was a very frustrating time – however, the leak is now fixed.

“Throughout our communications with customers, we explained that we would be looking to compensate customers fairly once the issues were fully resolved.

“The amount of compensation offered differed based on the length of time a household experienced intermittent issues with their hot water, as this differed among affected customers.

“Residents weren’t charged for lost water during the leak.”