Lancashire pensioners wearing coats indoors due to lack of cheap energy - 02/01/2009
Many Lancashire pensioners are resorting to wearing coats indoors in response to price rises from energy suppliers, reports Lancashire Evening Post.
The number of people living in fuel poverty - or having to put more than ten per cent of their annual income towards fuel bills - is thought to have risen sharply as a result of price rises from energy suppliers over the past few months, and pensioners are thought to account for many of them. According to the paper, 190,000 people in the north-west are currently suffering from fuel poverty.
Bill Hodges, of the South Ribble Pensioners' Association, told the paper: "I know people who are living their days in the cold with jumpers and coats on inside and then putting the heaters on for a couple of hours during the night."
Mr Hodges added that many elderly people were unwilling to ask for help from charities and so frequently did not tell anybody that they were suffering from a lack of cheap energy.
The government said that £20 billion has been spent addressing fuel poverty over the last eight years.
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