A PENSIONER was in danger of being left without heat in the freezing cold after oil could not be delivered.

Clare Stott, 87, of Top Lane, Wootton, near Woodstock, told The Oxford Times: “I ordered oil from my regular supplier CPL before the snow but then they didn’t come.”

She was only saved when neighbour Chris Pomfret, an energy consultant, turned up with an emergency 25-litre barrel of heating oil on a four-wheel drive truck. She said: “Chris was a star. He delivered enough oil by four-wheel drive to keep me going.”

Mr Pomfret said: “Thousands of rural oil customers are just sitting waiting for deliveries. The oil suppliers have been caught out completely by the snow. The usual turnaround is a maximum of three working days. But right now you are looking at ten to 15 working days.”

Mr Pomfret, who runs G & W, a not-for-profit oil buying group to enable consumers to obtain discounts on heating oil, said: “The question I would like to ask is: why didn’t the suppliers get 4x4 trucks, and get just 100 litres to the most vulnerable customers? I have been driving around in a truck delivering emergency oil supplies in 25-litre barrells to desperate people let down by their suppliers: 95-year-old widows, couples with babies, MS sufferers, housing association tenants with little money. I call this a silent crisis for many people.”

CPL marketing director Gareth Williams said they did use four-wheel drives and mini tankers to reach vulnerable people.

“Sometimes customers, particularly those on a system called Signalman, under which we deliver automatically when oil levels fall, panic early. They are used to receiving deliveries at Level 3 when, in fact, during an emergency like this, there is still further to go without danger of them running out.”

CPL regional manager Linda Price added: “The minute the temperature drops, our phone lines get very busy. Some of our tankers have become stuck due to roads being worse than reported and we are having to prioritise those customers at risk of running out.”

A spokesman for the Government body Consumer Direct, Tom Shepherd, said: “Consumers who fail to receive oil or gas should look at their contracts carefully. They may possibly have redress under the Supply of Goods and Services Act.”