Millions of households in the U.K. cannot afford to heat their homes properly.
February 19, 2006 8:10 PM
To Eat or Heat.
The current energy crisis is regrettably exacerbating an already unacceptable fact that millions of households in the U.K. cannot afford to heat their homes properly.
Fuel poverty is recognised as being caused by low household income , inadequate insulation and ineffective heating systems combined with unaffordable fuel prices.
The department of Trade and Industry calculates that a 1% real change in combined gas and electricity prices could mean an increase of 40,000 households suffering from fuel poverty.
Since 2003 energy prices for the average household have increase by 36.5%, in rural areas with no gas supply heating oil has increased by 75%.
The governments U.K. Fuel Strategy 2001 pledged that by 2010 fuel poverty would be eliminated for vunerable households, and that no household would suffer by 2016.
Energy Watch estimates though that between 2003 and 2005 a further 1.5 million households had fallen into the category of being in fuel poverty.
Living in cold or damp and poorly heated homes must effect the health and quality of life for so many of our fellow citizens and is surely a blight on our society.
With energy prices predicted to continue rising we need not only as a country to work to eliminate fuel poverty, we need to be more energy efficient and look to reduce our reliance on imported and expensive fossil fuels.
Councillor Graham Norman.
Liberal Democrat.
Meadvale and St Johns Ward.
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