Bleak choice this winter is ‘go hungry or go cold’
Some outsiders mistake the splendour of Bath’s Georgian crescents for evidence that the entire city is wealthy.
But like towns and cities across the country, people here have serious concerns ahead of energy price hikes expected to hit next month.
Purse strings in areas of Bath that suffer more deprivation, such as Snow Hill, will be tighter than most.
For Nat, a mum-of-three, it will soon be time to choose between eating or putting the heating on.
She works full-time and said any further increase in her bills would be “a struggle” to meet. Meanwhile, her neighbour Andy said he had considered taking on a second job to make ends meet.
Nat, who lives in Saffron Court, said: “It’s a nightmare, it really is. We’re going to have to decide whether to go hungry or go cold and I’ve already told my kids they’re going to have to layer up this winter. Just paying for their new school stuff is difficult enough.
“I work full-time and that just about covers everything as it is. I spend £50 a week on electricity so I just refuse to put my heating on this winter.”
Andy, a dad-of-one, said he “felt lucky” to be relatively well-off compared to some other folk living in Snow Hill. He said: “I am a chef and they offer us bonuses, but I’m not sure those are going to be enough to cover the increase in bills this October. Depending on how bad it gets, I might have to get a second job.
“I pay £45 electricity a month, but I am expecting that to double because the standing charge alone is going up £1 per day. We have a lot of jobs open at my workplace, but I think the cost of petrol is deterring people from travelling in from Trowbridge and the like – why bother if you are going to spend half your wages on fuel?”
Andy hails from Poland and often goes home to visit family. He said that the trip used to cost him £150 one-way in petrol, but now it was more like £300 and he believed that spiralling fuel costs had created a domino effect.
“If the price of petrol goes up, everything does, because all the shops have to get their goods delivered, don’t they? For example, my wife does the groceries every week and she says she has noticed a big rise in prices over the last few weeks,” he said.
Anyone who has walked through Snow Hill will recognise the Gateway Centre, which offers a lifeline to people in crisis. Whether you are homeless, vulnerable, or suffering from mental health issues, financial trouble, or addiction, they will do their best to help.
Sue Fourie, a manager there, said she had seen more people coming to the centre over the last few weeks. Some of them used the food parcel service, while others sought financial advice. She said: “We are seeing people taking desperate measures. For example, a lady in her 40s attended our Wednesday breakfast club last week and told me that her water bill had gone up to £80 this month and she could not afford to pay it.
“She works and her husband works and I know she is someone who is very careful with her money because she has attended our budgeting workshops before. She told me that she had taken out a credit card, to be able to pay the bill, but now she was behind on her credit card repayments.
“I have advised her on how to deal with that but what is terrible is how quickly it all happened. One day she was fine and the next she was really struggling to pay the bills.
“We offer food parcels, from the Co-op and Morrisons, and we have seen more people accepting those of late. This winter, we will also be extending our hours to offer ‘warm banks,’ where people can come down and warm up when their home is very cold.”
The government is also offering a £400 discount on energy bills this autumn for 29 million households across the country. Energy suppliers will deliver this support to households with a domestic electricity connection over six months from October 2022.
Anthony and his friend “Tall Paul” were discussing the discount and both thought it was good news for households like theirs across the country. However, then Anthony had another thought.
“I pay for my electricity with a key meter, so maybe I won’t be able to get it. For a lot of these things you need to be able to show them your bills – but I don’t have any bills, because I top up at the shop,” he said.
Paul added: “I think we’re all just going to have to cut back on certain things, everything’s gone up.”
■ Traditional prepayment meter – also known as “key meter” – customers will be provided with energy bill discount vouchers in the first week of each month, issued via SMS text, email or post. Customers will have to redeem these in person at top-up points, such as a local Post Office or the nearest Paypoint.