Cadent Wanting Access To Property

[badhorsey]

There are gas works taking place in my street, being done by Cadent. They've been pretty poor on the information front (it was supposed to be done by April, and now they're just knocking on people's doors demanding access).

One of my neighbours is in a ground-floor flat, and the pipes go under his property. They want access to see his meter, with a view to replacing the pipes and moving the meter inside. This would involve a massive amount of work – he has a cupboard under the stairs with a trapdoor to the basement, but it's full from top to bottom with things that he's storing for his daughter.

Emptying this out would be tricky – I understand he has serious back problems and nowhere to put the items for the week or so that would needed for the works – and this is on top of clinical anxiety.

What legal recourse does he have here? Can he refuse access or refuse for the works to be done? In our block we have annual gas checks and I know that his property and my own are 100% fine. The general feeling is that this is a box-checking exercise on the part of Cadent, being done with no interest in the disruption that it's causing to people.

[Buenchico]

A little light reading for you:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1996/2535/made