Meter mixup at Oldham new build sees man pay for neighbour’s energy

Andrew Wild, who lives at a Great Places housing property in Parkside Gardens, Royton, said he has been noticing ‘problem after problem’ since he moved into the home in January last year.

He says his communal lawn wasn’t mowed for a period of 11 months and he felt ‘fobbed off’ when he tried to get in touch with the company.

The 55-year-old has also experienced issues with fly-tipping, smoke ventilation units which have been left open, and keys left exposed to all in communal areas.

Mr Wild said: “There’s flytipping going on at the bin area.

"People at the rest of the estate are just dumping all their excess rubbish there.

"Even when their bins are empty, they’re not bothering to put their bags in the bins, so the council are just refusing to move it.

“There’s takeaway packets and chips all over the floor, and I think the magpies and the crows have been getting in the bags, so it’s going to attract rats eventually.”

After The Oldham Times got in touch, Great Places said it had now installed cameras and repaired access gates to the bin area, and has added the communal lawn to its maintenance schedule after it was erroneously left off.

Mr Wild confirmed the problems, including flytipping, have now been solved, but added he was ‘very upset’ it had taken so long to sort out.

A smoke ventilation unit was left opened in the communal area (Image: Andrew Wild)

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As well as issues with his housing provider, Mr Wild started noticing discrepancies with his energy bill.

His bills showed that he used more energy on weekends than weekdays – which did not match his schedule.

His energy supplier, Octopus Energy, had assured him that there was no mixup after he got in contact.

After The Oldham Times intervened, Octopus Energy agreed to do a ‘creep test’ in his home, which showed that his usage had been switched with his next-door neighbour.

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An Octopus Energy spokesperson said: “After we performed the aforementioned ‘creep test’ the other week, it was clear there was something wrong with the meter, so we sent engineers to attend the property and investigate the issue.

“We were then able to diagnose the problem. Andrew did indeed have a crossed meter issue that dated back to when it was originally installed by British Gas (Andrew has only been an Octopus customer since the 1st July 2023).

“We are in the process of correcting this for him and updating the national metering database so that this doesn’t happen again, even if he moves suppliers. Please note that we have waived any new costs that could arise from his refreshed energy bill, and also any costs from the new meter installation.

“We’ve been in regular contact with Andrew and will stay in touch with him while we sort out this issue for him.”

Andrew's energy meter was taking readings from his neighbour's property, and vice-versa (Image: Andrew Wild)

Great Places responds

Guy Cresswell, executive director of customer services at Great Places, said: “We are sorry to hear that Mr Wild has experienced some ongoing issues at his property.

“As a responsible landlord that owns and manages over 25,000 homes, things sometimes go wrong but we always aim to resolve them as soon as possible.

“We have carried out some minor works at the block including repairing the smoke ventilation unit. We are also replacing a key safe which has been broken into twice and are currently storing the keys off-site.

“We are aware of issues of fly tipping in the communal bins and have installed cameras, signage, repaired the bin stores and gates.

“Our operatives have removed all waste and have requested larger waste bins for the scheme. We are in discussions with environmental health on how to tackle this within the wider community.

“We have repaired the communal doors which lost power and we are investigating the cause of this and are monitoring them in case they have been tampered with. It has also been raised with Electricity Northwest.

“We accept that Mr Wild may not have received a great service in the past when contacting us.

“This would have been due to staffing issues in our contact centre that have now been addressed and a new Neighbourhood Services Manager being recruited.

"We have apologised to Mr Wild and are confident the improvements we have made have improved our service.”