A FAMILY from Thornbury who were forced out of their home after a faulty solar panel set the house on fire, have spoken of their disappointment at the delay in moving back in.

The McIntyre family moved out of Lavender Close into temporary accommodation in Cleveland Close back in August, financed by their insurance company, but work to repair the damage only began on December 14.

“The delay in getting the work started came from the loss adjusters dealing with the tender and the insurance company,” said Tony McIntyre, 51, a shift technician at Oldbury Power Station.

“The insurance company dragged their heels a bit and missed the window for a number of contractors, who moved on to other work.

“When you are waiting for things to happen and it is so slow, you really ask yourself why it is worth the hassle.”

Tony’s wife Angela, 57, added: “Being back here is quite hard to take, it’s all very real when you see it ripped up.

“When it originally went in the paper, I just wanted to get away from it all. I wanted to go to our caravan and stay there.

“I think it will be close to a year after the fire that we will be moved back in the house and properly settled, it will be a lot like having moved house as I don’t think it will seem like the place we used to live in.”

It was originally estimated that the work would take around six months to complete, with Tony, Angela and their 16-year-old daughter Chloe moving back in shortly after the New Year, but numerous delays have put the move back to the end of March.

Tony said: “I have been coming back now and again, it is good to finally see the work is under way.

“They have ripped out everything up there and have taken the roof off, I think it was more work than they originally expected, they have filled eight skips already.”

The family spent Christmas at Angela’s sister’s house in Littleton on Severn, rather than their usual plan of celebrating at home.

Angela said: “It was hard having Christmas away, we were quite restricted in what we could do.

“We are normally the kind of family that goes to town on the decorations but you can’t really do that when it is not your own house.

“We joked about sticking cards to the scaffolding around the house.”

She added: “We are such a close community and everyone was so good to us, people still come to Wildings where I work in Thornbury to ask how things are going.

“People kept asking if we were going to move away after the fire but we have been reassuring them that we will be staying once the work is done.”

Tony added: “There has been a debate over whether we will get solar panels again, if we do we are most likely to relocate it to the garage and will definitely be installing smoke detectors nearby."

“We have had many people ask about our situation, and how they can look to avoid a similar fate, so we are happy to help as many people as we can.”