According to
the latest figures, 53,272 Kent households (an average of 9% of total
households) are in fuel poverty (1). In some areas of Kent the number of
households in poverty is much higher than the county average. In Canterbury,
Thanet, Swale and Dover fuel poverty rates of between 17-22% are concentrated
in some of the most deprived wards (2).
“With wages
and benefits frozen or reducing in value and energy price rises many times
greater than inflation thousands of Kent people will find themselves in fuel
poverty with many having to make the choice between eating and heating,” said
Green Party Thanet Councillor, Ian Driver.
Energy
affordability could also make the difference between life and death. Based on
the latest available figures, it is estimated that during the winter of 2011,
approximately 70 people in Kent died as a direct result of living in cold
homes. At least 50% of these deaths were concentrated in Thanet, Swale, Shepway
and Dover, some of the poorest areas in the county (3).
Said Driver: “It’s
intolerable that people are allowed to die
in Kent and the rest of the country simply because they can’t afford to keep
warm. It should be a basic human right to be able to live in a warm home with
affordable fuel bills. The Green Party calls on the Government to massively
expand its programme of insulating the homes of people at risk of fuel poverty
and installing more fuel-efficient heating systems. The Government should also take steps to
ensure that a significant portion of the massive profits of the energy
companies are directed towards making electricity and gas more affordable,
rather than lining shareholder pockets.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-sub-regional-statistics
2.
Figures
extracted from above table and attached to this e-mail.
3.
The
2011 Hill’s Report on Fuel Poverty developed a methodology for calculating
deaths directly attributable to cold homes. 10% of all excess winter deaths
(700 in Kent in 2011) can be directly
attributed to cold homes = 70 deaths. 50% of
all excess winter deaths in Kent in 2011 were in Thanet, Swale, Shepway
and Dover. See and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15359312
An interesting point of view.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think it meshes with your efforts to prevent the harvest of fuel by way of hydraulic fracturing in Kent and the South of England, when in a world driven by supply and demand, such a supply would obviously hold or reduce the price of fuel?
Anon 8:08 has a valid point for, in a capitalist democracy coupled with an ecological demand for greener energy, prices are increasingly hard to control. On the one hand governments cannot dictate to companies how much they charge for their products and, on the other, green taxes introduced by governments have accelerate price increases.
ReplyDeleteIt is known that renewal energy sources are expensive, hence the green taxes, yet the green lobby backed by EU regulation want to do away with fossil fuel fired sources. Elsewhere one reads that the sale of wood burners are on the increase and the enterprising have spotted chimney sweeping as a growing business again. In other words, people are turning to wood to reduce their fuel bills, but increasing greenhouse gases in the process.
Are there easy answers? I think not and it is not sufficient to demand cheaper fuel. One has to be able to find and produce it. As that seems unlikely the only short term answer would appear to be to increase fuel subsidies to the less well off in our society.
Meantime in China, a communist totalitarian system, they are building new coal fired, greenhouse gas emitting power stations daily thus negating all our good efforts by covering our countryside and coastal waters with ugly and inefficient wind turbines. Is there really any point to anything.
What is driving up the prices? That's the question that we really need to address.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the price of gas has remained stable in the wholesale market for the last two years according to Ovo Energy so it cannot be the need to extract more gas that is driving up Electricity prices as well.
it was a great blog and i loved it but can you write some thing about
ReplyDeleteprodigy oil and gas