Margaret Pracy, a pensioner from Brighton, is being fined 54p a week by British Gas for spending less than £9 a week on her pre paid electricity bills. Margaret already paid in advance for her gas and electricity: ‘I am just unable to save up for bills so I prepay’. However, with the ever rising prices of gas and electricity, Margaret decided to reduce her bills by taking advantage of the governments energy saving initiative ‘warm front scheme’ which is free for all pensioners over 70.
Mrs Pracy said “I have had new insulation in the loft and put in energy saving light bulbs”. She also put a brick in her toilet cistern to save water as well as being more environmentally and financially friendly. Bill Randall, a local councillor said ‘it makes a mockery of insulation programmes’ and condemned it as ‘complete madness’.
As students, we are all too familiar with expensive gas and electricity bills, which are up by 12.1% since last year according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation. So having to pay out more for saving our planet will leave many of us in doubt as whether or not to install energy saving schemes in our homes.