An 88-year-old man in a wheelchair has been a virtual prisoner in his own home for over a year because a housing association failed to repair a hazardous path outside.

John Dalton, of Queensmere Close, Wimbledon, has been housebound since returning home from hospital treatment for a stroke to find gaping holes in the tarmac outside his front door.

The potholes appeared after contractors working for housing association Circle Housing Merton Priory (CHMP) dug up the path to repair a leak last summer and re-filled it with poor quality tarmac.

His wife Elizabeth Dalton said: "It has affected us terribly because I couldn’t take him out. He can’t afford to fall because that would be the end of him.

"They gave me three dates when no-one came and even before that there was no response from Circle.

"It broke my heart when the weather was beautiful and I couldn’t take him out."

Mrs Dalton first contacted CHMP about the path with a letter in November. She received no response to the letter, nor to a further letter sent in January this year.

In May the path was inspected by a council officer who gave it a hazardous rating and threatened to take CHMP to court if it failed to repair the path by the end of June.

Still, no work was carried out and it was only after the Wimbledon Guardian contacted CHMP this week that they began work on repairing the path.

Wimbledon Times:

Collapsed: The hazardous path 

A council spokeswoman said: "We have been assured by CHMP that initial repairs will start this week, but we will serve an enforcement notice if there is further delay."

Mrs Dalton said: "CHMP really do absolutely nothing. We are paying our rent, they should be there for the people but they are absolutely not and they give no compensation.

"They are disgraceful. How many other people have suffered the same way we did?"

The revelation comes just a fortnight after a whistleblower told the Wimbledon Guardian contractors working for CHMP regularly failed to turn up to jobs, falsely claimed they did not have time to complete work, or turned up without the right equipment.

Wimbledon Times:

'Disgraceful': the path left unrepaired for more than a year 

A CHMP spokeswoman said: "We are sorry for the delay in undertaking the work to the Dalton’s property.

"We have arranged for a temporary repair to be carried out on Tuesday, September 9, and this will be followed by a permanent repair by the end of this week."