A PENSIONER has labelled a scheme to install central heating in run-down council flats in Huncoat as ludicrous.

Evelyn Ashworth claims she has been waiting a year for Hyndburn council to carry out much needed repairs to her home in Oakhurst Avenue.

And the 66-year-old also says she cannot afford to pay the extra £4.12 a week in rent for the Smart Heat Economy Seven heating system which the council is planning to put in her home.

The irate pensioner has also slammed a public meeting organised by housing officials as a fiasco.

Mrs Ashworth says she would prefer rotting windows and door frames in her flat to be replaced instead of having the new heating.

She is also asking for damp problems to be sorted out along insulation at her her ground floor flat.

Mrs Ashworth, who already has heaters fitted in her home and does not want the new system installed, has written an angry letter to Hyndburn council about the situation.

And the council has now agreed to exclude Mrs Ashworth's property from the scheme.

She said: "I had attended a public meeting at the invitation of the council and found the whole affair a complete fiasco.

"The decision to fit heating in my flat is completely ludicrous. I have been waiting a full year for repair work to be carried out on my doors and windows.

"The window frames are in an advanced stage of decay and the ancient putty supposedly securing the glass is falling away in large strips."

Mrs Ashworth added: "I have far more pressing needs than heaters in the flat and I will not use them if they are installed. As a pensioner the weekly rent increase is five per cent of my weekly income and I am not on income support or any other benefit which would ease my plight."

Edgar Bignell, the head of Hyndburn's community services, said: "The tenants of these flats have been grumbling for many years about inadequate heating and we are now hoping the situation will improve.

"There was a public meeting several weeks ago and there were one or two tenants who did express some reservations about the scheme.

"Tenants were given the option of not having the system installed and we have taken the view that if people have made other arrangements to heat their homes there would be no point in installing the new system."

The deadline for tenants to opt out of the scheme has now passed.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.