A WESTBURY woman feels she is lucky to be alive after a piece of concrete fell from her roof during last Thursday's Storm Doris and narrowly missed hitting her as she unloaded her shopping.

Norma Vercoe, 49, of Morgan Walk, had returned from her shopping trip and as she was unloading her car a 12-inch piece of concrete fell from the roof. It landed on her car, damaging the boot, back light and paintwork.

“I usually park my car round the back but as I have a bad back and tennis elbow I parked it out the front so I could carry my stuff in. I had just put one lot of shopping in the house when I came out to find that part of the roof had fallen on my car," she explained.

"I was only gone for two minutes, if I had been taking shopping out of the boot that would’ve fallen on me, I could easily have been killed. I have a 10-year-old daughter, I am lucky she wasn’t walking by the car when it happened,” Mrs Vercoe said.

After contacting her landlords Guinness Partnership, Mrs Vercoe was shocked to be told she should reclaim the cost of the repairs from her own car insurance, when she had expected it to be covered by the landlord.

“I made the point that surely they have liability insurance and asked what would’ve happened if it fell on me. Claiming will ruin my no claims bonus and will cost hundreds to repair my car,” she added.

A spokesman for the Guinness Partnership said: "We advised the customer to claim on her car insurance because this would be the easiest and quickest way for her to get her costs covered. The car insurers could then pursue our insurers for the money should they feel we were responsible for the damage.

"If the customer does not wish to pursue a claim through her own insurance we are happy to submit a public liability claim to our insurer, however it would need to be proven that the Guinness Partnership were negligent for the damage before any payment was made. So it could take longer and might not be successful," said the spokesman.

"A contractor is booked to visit the site to make sure the roof is safe and to carry out any necessary work."