Free energy advice for Fuel Poverty Awareness Day
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Our energy advice service team provides support to people in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, whatever the season.
They will be marking Fuel Poverty Awareness Day on Wednesday 18 November with free community workshop events to help local people find out potential ways to reduce their bills and make their home more energy efficient.
Why not join them?
Read on to find out more from the team…
For many people across Greater Manchester and Lancashire, the energy crisis is increasing household fuel bills while the cost-of-living crisis is decreasing household funds.
This means that many people are struggling to keep up with their fuel payments.
For some people, this poses a choice between heating and eating, and many people in our area have to decide whether to keep themselves fed or warm, every day.
This disproportionately impacts people on a low income or unemployed, single parents, people with disabilities or long-term illnesses, and people who live in privately rented accommodation, council or social housing.
To mark last year’s fuel awareness day, our energy advice team ran a series of events across our Caritas and partner sites to gain insight into how this affects people, and how people think about their energy bills too. Feedback received from people included:
- Their energy bills had doubled within the previous twelve months and caused them financial hardship
- They only put the heating on when they are getting their children dressed in the morning and would never put the heating on to keep themselves warm while their children are at school
- They have resorted to using residual heat from the oven to heat the house, but that this did not work very well
- They feel anxious, worried, and not fully prepared to heat their house over the colder winter months
- Their family ‘goes without’ other items to ensure they can keep their house warm
- They feel their energy supplier does not care about the emotional impact of being in energy debt
- They wish the government would nationalise the energy sector to provide affordable energy to low-income families
There are lots of ways that local people are affected and our energy advice team works with people who are struggling to afford their energy bills, to keep up with their fuel payments, and keep their house warm, helping them to reduce their energy bills, increase their home’s energy efficiency, and manage their energy debt. We also make food bank and other support referrals to ensure that, where possible, people don’t have to make a choice between heating and eating.
This Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, we’ll be running some free workshops to further help people in our community.
We’ll be at the Caritas Cornerstone day centre and Lalley centre, as well as joining our friends from Wonderfully Made Women at Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project.
You can find out more about the free events and how to come along by clicking here now.
Contact us on 0161 205 2754 or email energyadvice@caritassalford.org.uk, if you have any questions.
If you’d like to support our vital work, you can do so by volunteering as an energy champion, or fundraising to help our work.