TENSIONS between Costa and a Swindon mum have reached boiling point after staff at several of the town's branches refused to give her hot water to warm up her baby’s milk.

Tessa Lake is a regular at the national coffee shop chain and often visits their branches while shopping with her newborn Arya who she welcomed into the world three months ago.

But after stopping off at Costa in Greenbridge Retail Park a fortnight ago, staff kicked up a fuss over giving her a cup of water due to ‘health and safety risks’.

The 35-year-old said: “To begin with I only emailed their head office to complain because I was a bit cross about it and then it became a bit of a sticking point for me that they hadn’t sorted it.

“I haven’t had any problems before now and every other place we’ve been has been incredible.

“When it first happened, I assumed the staff had to be wrong. They refused to give me hot water on health and safety grounds but will happily sell piping hot drinks which is just ridiculous. They kept saying it over and over and so it seems to them that apparently a cup of tea is not a health and safety risk yet a cup of hot water is.

“I was absolutely shocked that a simple request for water had been turned down.”

Costa HQ profusely apologised to Tessa and said they would reissue their policy to staff on allowing hot water to be given to mums free of charge.

But just days later, the new mum visited other branches at the Orbital Shopping Centre, in the centre of town and at the Designer Outlet Village – with staff again refusing to hand over any hot water despite showing the emails she had received stating otherwise.

“Costa is probably one of the coffee shops that a lot of parents go to to catch up with other mums which is why it makes their actions even stranger,” she said.

“When you are bottle feeding, sometimes it is more difficult than breast feeding because you need to think of somewhere you can get hot water and you rely on that amenity. For such a big name like Costa to not follow the request it is quite something, especially when other coffee shops like Starbucks are happy to accommodate.”

She has since posted her experiences on her blog The Grumpy Mum which has caused quite the reaction.

Costa have said: “We are renowned for our family friendly environment and our coffee shops are the perfect place for mum’s to relax with their children. We welcome mothers to breastfeed in store, warm bottles and deliver drinks to their tables. We have apologised to the customer for her experiences and will be reissuing communication to teams to inform them of our family friendly policies.”