A grandmother and her family say they've been waiting for almost a year for repairs to their house after a fire.

When the blaze hit the McFarlanes' home in Gravesend last November, part of the building at the back of the house was badly damaged.

Gravesham council says some work at the property in Jubilee Crescent has been delayed due to difficulties staff have had in getting into either the property itself or areas where work needs to be carried out. They continue to try to agree a date with the family so teams can get in and do the work.

Sue McFarlane, 84, has lived in the same council house for about 40 years and suffers with emphysema, lung cancer and COPD.

Her daughter Trish McFarlane says her mother struggles to access the garden through the burnt-out building because it is too dangerous to use regularly and has been left too afraid to go out since the fire.

But the family say they are angry at the way Gravesham council has handled the repairs and 11 months on the fire-damaged part of the building is no closer to being fixed.

Trish, 55, says despite contractors coming out to do decorating work, the peeling plaster, exposed wiring and damaged wooden beams in the roof means further work to the structure is required first.

"It's disgusting and been really despicable the way it's been handled," Trish said. "My mum is in bad health, I live here and we have a child here too.

"Someone came last week to do decorating but he can't. It's not sturdy enough and they've got to do the roof first and then that's got to be reassessed.

"It's a fire hazard still for us – it blocks access to the garden – and all of our stuff is around the house.

"I don't know how long we've got to wait.

"We've been given no reason at all (why it's not been repaired). I don't know what's holding them back.

"They think everything can be wiped down but you can't. It's still smelling of the fire out there.

"All we want is it to be sorted out and we can get on with our lives."

Daniel Killian, director of housing at Gravesham council, said: “Some works at the property in Jubilee Crescent have been delayed by difficulties our staff have had in accessing either the property itself or areas of the property where work needs to be carried out.

“We continue to liaise with our tenant to try and agree an acceptable date for our repairs team to attend and carry out the necessary work.”

Mr Killian added the council has a 100% record in carrying out emergency repairs to properties which continued through lockdown with almost 90% of "non-urgent repairs" taking place within the required timeframe.

"Our repairs team works hard to ensure we give the highest priority to ensuring our tenants’ homes are kept in the best possible condition," he said.

"Of course, there are occasionally circumstances that means repairs take longer than is ideal, which is always regrettable."

Trish says her nephew Marcus came to the rescue when the fire started and jumped out of a bedroom window into the garden to use the hose until firefighters arrived.

"We would have been a goner," she said. "He brought it under control before the firefighters got here.

"He put his life on the line for us and had no consideration for his own life.

"I was taking the little one for a bath and just saw black smoke going past the window."

Marcus, 20, who was rushed to hospital with severe breathing difficulties after inhaling smoke said he still suffers flashbacks from the fire on November 14 last year.

"I just thought, don't worry about myself and was only worrying about my family," he said.

"It was pretty scary trying to put out the fire. The amount of heat was massive – possibly about 800C – and I was only about three or four feet away and sometimes right on top of it.

"The paramedics said my oxygen level was so low another 10 minutes and I could have been dead.

"We were very lucky to be alive."

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