RESIDENTS at a flagship York housing development have been offered hotel accommodation after repeated problems with the centralised supply of heating and hot water.

Householders have been without hot water for up to a fortnight at some properties in Derwenthorpe, where an eco-friendly biomass boiler is intended to provide energy to all homes.

One resident from the Seebohm quarter said recently on Derwenthorpe's Facebook site: "It has been 2 weeks today that we have been without hot water. The constant false promises and incompetence are beginning to wear thin with me, my partner and my 4 month old son."

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, which is behind the model village development on York's eastern outskirts, apologised for the inconvenience.

And a spokesman said that in cases where residents had been left without hot water for a prolonged period, it had offered them hotel accommodation, although it understood no one had taken up the offer.

He said: "As we continue to develop Derwenthorpe, we have faced issues linking the district heating system to the newly completed properties.

"In order to overcome this, we connected new properties in the Seebohm and Lotherington quarter to temporary boilers in order to provide heat and hot water.

"Unfortunately, we have experienced intermittent problems with these boilers, which we have worked to resolve and we apologise for the inconvenience this has caused."

He said that whilst residents had been connected to the temporary boilers, they had not been charged for heat and hot water, and the temporary boiler had now been removed from the Seebohm quarter, with the properties connected to the main heating system.

"There has been a small amount of disruption caused to these residents, which we have now resolved.

"We have learned from this situation and we will apply this experience when we remove the temporary boiler from the Lotherington quarter.

"Once this work is complete, all residents will be served from the main system, and future connections will not be exposed to disruption, as all services will be fully commissioned and connected prior to the resident moving in."