One item has dominated the news schedules across the country and in all media this week – and, not surprisingly, it has been the weather.
As the mercury plummeted and the icy conditions settled in, we had reports of deep snow, chill winds and temperatures in some parts of Britain as low as -15C. In Argyll and the Isles it was routinely down to around -7C. So it should not come as a shock that people living in West Highland Housing Association homes behind Lorn and the Islands Hospital in Oban were upset that they were left without heating or hot water, some of them for up to three days. What was shocking, however, was the claim that WHHA’s Biomass Energy Centre at Glenshellach ‘is not coping with cold weather’.
It is a fundamental expectation that a heating system should be able to operate during a cold snap. Indeed, it is unthinkable that it should not.