A 50-YEAR-OLD disabled widow is living in a freezing house with no hot water - and has been told she will have to wait up to six months for a new boiler.

Caroline Beddows, of Crock Lane, Bridport applied for a Government Warm Front grant in September when her old boiler broke down. She was told it was too old to fix and replacing it would cost more than £2,900.

The Warm Front grant only goes up to £2,700 but she was told as soon as she paid the difference work could start.

Although she was up to her overdraft limit, her bank agreed to lend her the difference and the money has been taken out of her account.

But now Mrs Beddows, who has various health issues including Addison's Disease, post-polio syndrome, fibromyalgia, heart and kidney disease, has been told she could have to wait between four and six months for the new boiler.

She said: "Some of the things I have affect my joints and being this cold just makes them all hurt much more.

"I have been told the people who do the work don't prioritise and they have a lot of work on. They have cashed my money but are saying I may have to wait up to six months - they are getting interest on the money I can ill afford to give them.

"My MP, Oliver Letwin, has written a letter and my doctor is very concerned it is affecting my health because it is so cold in my house.

"She has written a letter too but neither have had a response. I thought when Mr Letwin had written we would get some sort of reply.

"The boiler does all my heating and hot water and although someone has lent me an oil filled radiator it only takes the very worst of the chill off and I am frightened about my electricity bill. It is so cold my home carers don't even take their coats off when they come.

"Luckily my washing machine is cold water filled but I have no way of drying the washing and that's lying around wet, which doesn't help and I have noticed damp has started to come up in the house where it is not warm."

A spokesman for Warm Front said: "The whole scheme is set up to help people on benefits so they will be vulnerable people. Each case is effectively a priority case.

"We stress at the outset this is not an emergency breakdown system. We do try everything we can to get the central heating systems installed as fast as we can.

"We are currently doing 1,000 homes a day. It is the sheer scale of the Government project - and it is a very good and very popular scheme. To get a new heating system for £200 is not bad.

"We will certainly work as fast as we can but there are time scales within which we operate - the average is 66 working days. We may be able to look at providing some temporary heating but that is not what the scheme is set up to do."