Ten Flood Victim Families faced by eviction owing to incompetent Insurers.

3.29.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 26th Nov 2007

Councillors were appalled on Friday to be told that no less than ten families living in the Regency Hotel in Thatcham due to flood damage to their homes had been threatened with eviction because the Insurers had not made the necessary payments of the Hotel's bill.

Cllr Owen Jeffery (Lib Dem Thatcham South & Crookham) was contacted on Friday 23rd November by a Mother with a 17 month old toddler desperate because the hotel bill owed by Home Housing's (formerly Warden Housing) Insurers had not been paid for some weeks. After spending a day on the phone to those involved a payment was only received late on Friday, barely in time to prevent their eviction on Monday at 4:00 p.m. . 'The picture that emerged as I followed up this one phone call was truly shocking' said Cllr Jeffery over the weekend. 'Ten separate families - including many children and OAP's - were put in jeopardy by an amazingly slovenly performance by parts of the Insurance industry. I believe that we should consider naming and shaming businesses such as these'.

West Berkshire Council had to be put on standby for a housing crisis that should never have arisen in case the families needed to be urgently re-housed on Monday morning. Flood victims were worried sick, valuable time and effort at West Berks Council and at Home Housing was diverted to responding to a totally unnecessary emergency and Councillors spent a day chasing an industry that used to boast of 'Not making a Drama out of a crisis!'

David Rendel, Parliamentary Spokesman for the Lib Dem Party in Newbury Constituency, voiced his concern that 'people already facing severe trauma should have been treated with so little consideration by a major British industry' .

Jeff Brooks, Leader of the Lib Dem Cllrs on West Berkshire Council added that ' Cllrs Owen Jeffery and Lee Dillon ( himself a flood victim) had the support of the whole Lib Dem team on the Council in acting immediately to sort out this potentially disastrous problem at once'.