Is a jammed shared garden gate preventing meter access an emergency repair?

[itsbtbt]

I live in a flat with a shared back garden, shared between my flat and downstairs neighbour. my neighbour passed away early April and the flat has been empty since, His family came once in early may, took his tv out of the flat then left and haven't been back since, Furniture is still in there etc so I can't ask them for access.

The problem is.. My gas and electricity meters are both just behind a side gate which leads into the back garden, I have no other way to get to my meters as in a first floor flat with no back door/way into the garden unless i throw myself out of my bedroom window!.

It's a 6ft gate attatched to the side of neighbours front door, It's not locked (i don't see a padlock and it did open a few weeks ago) but it just won't open no matter what I try, it's jammed. It's that bad that even my uncle couldn't open it an hour ago when I called him for help, 9 times out of 10 if i top up either of my meters it's touch or go if it goes on and i will then have to go to the meter and put a code in, called housing association earlier and they said the earliest appointment to fix it would be the 27th july, they have told me not to break the gate.

I'm disabled and physically cannot climb over it.

Is this not classed as an emergency repair seeing as if I can't put the codes in my gas and electricity will go off?

It should be prioritised as a repair as you have a disability and the catastrophic effect not having electricity would have, particularly as there are issues around kerping cool. Check their repairs charter/policy document to see what it says about repairs for persons with a disability.
Raise a formal complaint using their complaints policy.
Finally speak to your local councillor and ask for their help. They can be very good in putting a rocket up HA.

If there is no way to access the meters, which can be required sometimes when topping up, ( I've had one so understand), then the HA absolutely need to treat this as an emergency. They can very easily do that here.

If you can't access the garden too, even if you don't use it, that's appalling.

HA can make this a priority and they should. You need to be assertive, polite, but assertive.

Call tomorrow's/ today and say..'This situation is definitely an emergency. Please can you assure me that someone will be here to repair in 24 hours. I am disabled so this is a significant risk to me and my health if I cannot access any electricity '.

I've been in many situations where I quickly realised, you have to be assertive and insist with them or they will fob you off.

I would just lie in this situation. Call and tell them your electricity is off due to not being able to top up and they need to come immediately to open the gate and allow you access. If they do happen to see the meter and realise you still have some power, then just say that you finally managed to get a small payment through just before they arrived after it previously failing x number of times. Very doubtful they will check tho.