No one should be left in the cold in this day and age

It is a shameful statistic whichever way you might try to slice it. More than four per cent of over-65s who live alone, live without central heating.

That amounts to onein-25 of this particular group, or 498 people.

Just shy of 500 people may not at first glance sound like a large number of people in the city, but the fact that there are any in this day and age is just wrong.

Only two other local authorities in all of England and Wales come above Portsmouth in this league of shame, proportionately speaking – Barrow-inFurness in Cumbria and Gwynedd in north-west Wales.

Having no central heating is a household characteristic used as an indicator of deprivation. It is nothing new to report that Portsmouth is, largely, a deprived area. However, that we do continue to perform so poorly in tables like this speaks to a deep-rooted problem.

Recent years have been blighted by what can feel like a continual state of crisis – we have gone from Covid to the cost-of-living spiralling out of control as inflation reaches a 40-year high.

As a result, increasing numbers of households have slipped into fuel poverty.

If those people are older and live alone, the chances that they are living in cold conditions undetected will increase.

As Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK says, this could have ‘potentially serious consequences for their health and wellbeing.’

Talk of ‘warm spaces’ being opened in public buildings and the like to offer some respite from the cold sounds more like something we would hear about from behind the Iron Curtain 50 years ago rather than Britain in 2023.

To use a more modern phrase, it is one more example of ‘broken Britain.’ No one should have to live in the cold.

More must be done.