A COUNCIL worker has slammed her former employers after she was evicted from her Winchester home.

Pauline Forbes said the city council ordered her to move out after she quit the authority's housing department last year.

She was accommodated in social housing in Firmstone Road, Winnall, as part of her role as the scheme manager, which she began in 1995.

Prior to that she was at a council flat in King Alfred's Place, Hyde, and she says that after years of service the authority should have re-housed her when she left last April.

"I'm absolutely devastated," she said. "I've been a loyal and good servant to the council, I was hardly off sick during my 13 years. I could give numerous statements of people who are appalled by this. Morally I think it stinks."

The 54-year-old, who left the council to work for Brendoncare in Alton, is preparing to take up a private tenancy at a home in Oglander Road, Abbotts Barton, where the rent is £250 extra per month.

Although she is earning around £7,000 more at her new job, she believes she meets social housing criteria because her mother is in sheltered housing in the city.

A city council spokesman said: "Miss Forbes found alternative employment a year ago and has had time to apply for alternative housing. She is entitled to bid for properties along with everyone on the housing register and we have discussed the options with her."