Robert Alton was found dead inside his flat on Hemsworth Road in Bolton on 9 March 2023.

The subsequent police and coroner’s investigation has concluded Robert’s death was not suspicious and that he likely died in May 2017 at aged 70.

An inquest heard that his remains were only found after officials from housing association Bolton at Home forced entry to the property in order to carry out a gas safety check.

Officials who found Mr Alton’s body also discovered a half-metre-high pile of unopened post, food with expiration dates in 2017, and a pair of reading glasses placed on a TV guide dated 4 May 2017.

Bolton at Home has issued a statement to apologise for the “opportunities we missed” and offer “heartfelt condolences”.

Noel Sharpe, group chief executive officer at Bolton at Home said everyone at the housing association has been left “deeply shocked” by the incident, and realises it will “concern and upset people” to learn that Mr Alton’s body remained undiscovered for such a long time.

Mr Sharpe admitted that it’s “completely unacceptable” that something like this has happened, and assures that it’s 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,” Mr Sharpe admitted in his statement.

“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, and following this, we made many attempts to contact Robert over a number of years to arrange gas safety checks.

“Following this, we made many attempts to contact Robert over a number of years to arrange gas safety checks. 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.

“We changed our procedure in July 2022, and we now immediately begin the process of seeking access to someone’s home via a warrant in instances where we cannot contact them to arrange a gas safety check. It was this change and subsequent review of previous instances that ultimately led to us seeking a warrant to access Robert’s home and discovering his body.

“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.”