A PENSIONER claims she has not been able to leave her flat for eight years, apart from a brief stay in a residential home.

Elizabeth Taverner lives in a ground floor council-owned flat in Kenton and appealed through a letter to the Observer for landlord Harrow Council to resolve her problems.

She sung the praises of her carers, however.

The 79-year-old grandmother, who suffers from bed sores, wrote: “I am registered disabled and have been housebound and immobilised for the past eight years.

“If I was not housebound, I would have been sitting in a solicitor’s office long ago.

“I am not a number on their books. I am a human being in great need.

“I have got my magazines and my television but there does come a time when you get fed up, I just want to get out and about.”

Mrs Taverner said the front door is no longer wide enough for her custom wheelchair.

The council installed a semi-permanent ramp beside her rear patio doors in June 2012 to provide alternative access, however, the ramp was removed 13 months ago to make way for scaffolding for new window installation that required her to spend four days in a nursing home.

The council built a wet room in April 2012 but the door was not wide enough to accommodate her wheelchair and, she claims, the modifications left the hallway too small to turn her wheelchair in.

The correctly sized bathroom door was only rectified four months later and the shower needed replacing last year.

A friend, who did not want to be named, said: “She last went outside about eight years ago.

“She needs a hearing test and an eye test but hasn’t been able to go out.

“She is a lovely lady, she is telling the truth.”

Mrs Taverner’s nephew Christopher Stocker, 65, an ex-mess hand on HMS Warrior, lives with his aunt.

He told the Observer: “This has been going on for years.

“The scaffolding should have been cleared months ago but it has been up there for months and
months.

“It is in the last few years that she has become bed-ridden and hasn’t been able to go outside.”

Deputy council leader, and cabinet member for adults and housing Councillor Barry Macleod-Cullinane (Conservative), said: “We were alerted to this by Mrs Taverner on Thursday [last week] and are ensuring that the scaffolding relating to the major refurbishment works is removed as soon as possible.

“We are sorry for any problems that have been caused.

“We have conducted a full inspection of the inside of the house and are confident that Mrs Taverner can access all areas.”

Officers from the London Fire Brigade assessed the property and say Mrs Taverner can leave the flat in an emergency through other means than her wheelchair, such as on a stretcher.

Mrs Taverner said she has accepted the council’s offer of a day care centre placement after initially refusing it.