A TRAINEE midwife was left without cooking facilities for a month because St Albans District Council failed to fix an electrical socket. Jennie Coates, aged 26, and her five-year-old daughter recently moved into a council property in Molecroft, Harpenden.

A TRAINEE midwife was left without cooking facilities for a month because St Albans District Council failed to fix an electrical socket.

Jennie Coates, aged 26, and her five-year-old daughter recently moved into a council property in Molecroft, Harpenden.

But when she arrived on February 10 she found that there was a problem with an electrical socket which meant the cooker could not be connected to the mains.

The council told her the problem would be fixed by February 26 and a surveyor came round a few days after she moved in to assess the problem. They decided the socket needed to be repositioned but a workman who came round could not fix the problem.

A district council spokesperson said the workman realised the cable in the wall was too short to reposition the socket and he could not do the job there and then and, because of an administrative error, it was authorised only recently.

He couldn't say when it would be completed.