A 79-YEAR-OLD cancer patient in hospital recovering from a gallstones operation was shocked to be told by visiting relatives his council-owned sheltered home had been flooded with scalding water from a cracked tank.

Bertie Smith lives alone in his top floor flat at the warden assisted Saunders Court retirement block in Micklefield.

Since he was discharged from Wycombe Hospital a week ago last Wednesday he has been sleeping on his daughter’s sofa.

Carroll Bolt, landlady of The Terriers pub at Terriers, says her father couldn’t get up the stairs and there was nowhere else for him to sleep.

“He couldn’t go back to his flat. Apart from anything else, the water had been turned d off. He didn’t have a toilet. He couldn’t make himself a cup of tea..”

She says she was contacted by the council on the evening of July 13, the day she took her father into hospital, with news that water was gushing out of his flat and had flooded the flat below.

The family went to the flat to find it flooded after the council plumber went out and then left without doing anything.

She said: “The kitchen was deep in scalding water. I’d say the temperature in there was 100 degrees. The walls were soaking, the plaster was soaking.

"The water was coming through a crack in the tank. It had flooded into the hall and through the floor into the flat below. The carpets were sodden. The whole place stank. It took us two hours to drain the tank. That was all we could do. An electrician turned up while we there but he went away without doing anything.”

After calling emergency numbers the next day Caroll said she was eventually given the number for Suregas, the company responsible for the boiler and heating, but not the tank, which is the council’s responsibility.

She said the plumber arrived promptly and told her the whole system needed replacing.

She said: “Meanwhile I was racing between the pub and Dad’s flat to be there to let all these people in. Dad was in pain and had been told to rest. He was so stressed. He was crying. It was a nightmare.

“First off, the council said we’d have to wait a week for the cracked tank to be replaced. I told them that just wasn’t good enough.

"Then I got a call back to20say urgent jobs had been put on hold so that they could fit a new tank last Friday. I was horrified. What was more urgent than Dad’s situation?”

After several appointments and conversations with the council plumber and Suregas, a new boiler and heating system is to be fitted on Monday.

Margaret Draper, Wycombe District councillor for Micklefield has taken up Mr Smith’s case.

She told the Bucks Free Press: “It’s the saddest thing that in all my years of being a councillor in Micklefield I have ever heard and it reduced me to tears.

“There is no temporary accommodation. He is in such a state.

‘What is going in this world?’ is my question. Surely our senior citizens deserve better than this.

“He should not have been allowed out of hospital without a care facility.”

Council spokesman Catherine Spalton said the hot water and heating system is being replaced in all the flats at Saunders Court.

Cllr Julia Wassell said this weekend she would be driving Bertie around to locations where he might be able to live. She said she has arranged for social services to assess his needs and hopes to get him transferred to a bungalow.