The gasman who was 8 years, 3 months late for an urgent appointment

There are few things more demeaning than sitting in waiting for a delivery or tradesman who doesn't show up.

I should know, I've been waiting more than eight years for the pondlife that runs our gas industry to replace my dangerously out-moded gas meter with a new model.

And once again they've let me down. With the usual breath-taking incompetence I've come to expect of this unaccountable private-sector bureaucracy, I've spent all morning waiting for an engineer who, I suspect, has gone home.

This mess began in 1998 when the Transco Area Emergency Bureau wrote saying that under the Gas Act they were obliged to change my gas meter.

I made an appointment but no one turned up.

This happened three times that year.

By 1999, I'd received an apology, three lots of compensation and a promise that the work had been rescheduled and that 'Transco will be in contact nearer the time.'

I never heard from Transco again.

In the intervening years, I have written and called Transco, which has since changed its name to Southern Gas Network, but I still have the old meter.

Three times I've had to call the gas emergency line because the meter has started leaking. But each time they refused to replace the meter - a 30-minute job.

Then in September 2006 I received a letter from Southern Gas Network. The same one I had had from Transco seven years previously. For safety and regulatory reasons they wanted to change my meter.

I made an appointment. And they didn't show up.

Richard Browning, This is Money