A housing association has apologised following the discovery of the body of one of their residents, up to six years after they died.

Bolton at Home had failed to check on 70-year-old Robert Alton since May 2017, when the coroner estimates that Mr Alton had passed away.

The housing provider did attempt to contact Mr Alton in June 2017 to arrange an annual gas safety check. Instead, they turned off turned off gas supply to the property externally in order to make it gas-safe.

Bolton at Home continued to try to arrange a gas safety check over the subsequent years, but did not act when they received no response from Mr Alton. In 2022, due to a change in their procedures, the housing association applied for a warrant to seek access to the property, which was when news of Mr Alton’s passing was discovered.

In the six years following his death, Mr Alton’s rent was continuing to be paid via housing benefits.

In a statement, Bolton at Home’s group chief executive officer, Noel Sharp said: “Everyone at Bolton at Home has been deeply shocked by this and we realise it will concern and upset people to learn his body remained undiscovered for such a long time. It’s completely unacceptable to us that something like this has happened, and we’ve taken action to reduce the risk of it happening again.

“The reason we didn’t discover Robert’s death for so long is because our previous procedure, while meeting legal requirements, wasn’t strong enough to prevent something like this happening.

“We’d made Robert’s home gas safe in June 2017 by turning off the gas supply externally after we were unable to contact him to arrange the annual gas safety check.

“It’s clear that the action taken by us to understand why we couldn’t contact him didn’t go far enough. Opportunities were missed in spotting that something was potentially wrong. We should have done more to check on Robert’s welfare.

“The change to our procedure significantly reduces the risk of something like this from happening again. In addition, we’re also taking steps to enable our tenancy support team to work more closely with our gas safety team where we’re struggling to gain access to a property and where there may be welfare concerns.

“We’re also exploring what else we might be able to do to further reduce the risk of this being repeated.

“I would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to Robert’s loved ones, friends and neighbours and apologise to them for the opportunities we missed in finding out why we couldn’t contact him.”