A couple who paid more than £10,000 towards a new conservatory are still waiting for work to start 20 months after they ordered it.

Gina and Tim Richardson’s Dorcan garden has been filled with rubble for months following a series of cancellations by Anglian after they made the order in January 2020 and prepared the site. And they say the delays have left it unsafe for their young grandson.

“They don’t know how they’ve affected us,” said Gina, 65. “It’s disheartening but what else can you do? My husband often gets really low because of it. It’s stressful and there are often times where we both think ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”

“Our grandson has autism,” Tim explained. “This has really affected him because it’s not a nice environment for him to be comfortable in and the garden is quite dangerous as it is.”

They have also been left with sliding doors that are broken, often getting jammed open or closed and that allow a leak into the house when it rains. 

They said they asked Anglian to repair the doors to stop the leak, but the company has been unable to commit to do it. 

“We wanted to cancel the contract after a while” says Tim, 68. “But they said we’d owe them another £5,000 if we did, even though they couldn’t tell us when we’d actually get the conservatory.”

“Apparently our bespoke conservatory has been built in their warehouse, but when I asked if I could at least come and get it and arrange for it to be installed ourselves they said we weren’t allowed.”

The couple feel trapped because they have no choice but to wait. Even more worrying they’ve been told by the firm their balance shows as zero and that they owe a deposit before work can start - despite paying two payments of £5400 and £5378. 

They’ve made several attempts to speak to the company to resolve the latest issue and after being promised phone calls from the area manager are still waiting for someone to get in touch.

“We’re stuck in a loop,” Tim said. 

Contacted by the Adver, a spokesman from Anglian said: “Due the impact of the recent pandemic and the subsequent pingdemic of the NHS test and trace self-isolation requirements (sometimes at very short notice) it has resulted in some unavoidable delays of our customers having a later date for installation than originally estimated. 

“We understand that this can cause disruption and so for this we apologise, however we can confirm that we are in communication with Mr and Mrs Richardson and their installation is due to commence October 25.”