Heating oil price shock

ACS News   ·   December 17, 2010

Financially burdened heating oil users hoping to sign up to the government’s Warm Front initiative have been told that no more funds are available.

The blow comes as weather forecasters predict another cold snap to rival the one experienced in the past few weeks.

Energy and Climate Change secretary Chris Huhne announced that resources put aside for the scheme have dried up until the start of the next financial year. That could leave a lot of people, particularly those living in rural areas suffering from fuel poverty exposed to the bitter temperatures predicted over Christmas and beyond.

Although fully subscribed for this year, Mr Huhne insisted that the scheme will aim to help more people in 2011.

“Warm Front will be back and we will make the available funds work harder by focusing help on the oldest and poorest people,” he remarked.

Heating oil prices have been sky-high of late, but Bloomberg has suggested that an increase in crude stockpiles could lead to a slight drop in costs.

Energy bills have risen by around eight per cent when compared with prices this time last year. But for the one and a half million people in the UK who use heating oil to keep their homes warm, prices have soared by ten times that amount. Now energy critics are calling for the government to step in to regulate the market.

The high of this essential commodity has even triggered thefts from home owners oil tank. Leading to one new mother having her heating oil stolen. She only made the discovery after returning home from hospital to find thieves had stolen her family’s oil supply.

As Sarah Holford, 38, from North Newington, was giving birth to daughter Lucie, her oil tank was drilled into and the contents siphoned off.

She was forced spend more than a week living in one room of the house with her new baby with a plug-in fan heater.

A new oil delivery has meant heating has now been restored. So much oil leaked into the garden following the theft  that the family were initially forced to move into a hotel. Mrs Holford’s parents took her other two children Eloise, aged six, and Rebecca, three, out of school to live with them while and her husband Simon stayed to clear up the contamination.