fuel prices

Shropshire rural care staff hit by rising fuel costs

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I suspect the depressing features of this story are to become a common refrain over the winter of 2022/23. It tells us:

A rural domiciliary carer has said that rising fuel costs are one of the reasons for the lack of staff.

Ash Turner works for New Dawn Care in Craven Arms, south Shropshire, and said the mileage she gets back, only just covers her fuel costs.

About 130,000 new care workers are needed each year in the UK just for the social care workforce to cope with current demands, Age UK said.

“I’m now out of pocket for insurance and wear and tear,” Ms Turner said.

“Before the fuel crisis, I would have had money left over if I needed my tyres doing,” she added.

Ms Turner said she paid about £100 a week to fill up her car and said on her days off, she thinks “can I go to Shrewsbury, can I do this because I need the fuel for work”.

As Ms Turner works in a rural area, she said she often has to drive up hills and down country lanes to reach her clients.

“We’ve got more problems working in a rural place, and there are loads of pot holes,” said the carer.

Rachel Wintel, manager at New Dawn Care, said they can only afford to pay 35p a mile.

“This is because currently local authorities aren’t able to pay travel time or mileage in the packets of care that we pick up, as providers we pay mileage and we pay travel time,” Ms Wintel said.

The lack of social care staff is also affecting the hospitals and ambulance wait times due to hospital staff “not being able to discharge patients who are medically fit to go home or to go into rest and rehabilitation care,” MP for south Shropshire and former health minister Philip Dunne said.

Cost of living crisis: ‘People heating one room with firewood’

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A classic rural example of the problems people are facing in terms of the cost of living crisis. This story tells us:

High Ash Farm in Caistor St Edmund is a 500-acre arable farm. It is also a haven for wildlife, with half the farm set aside for flora and fauna. The farm has also diversified into horses, with 25 stables and paddocks for livery.

Daniel Skinner, the owner, says the rise in the cost of fuel is a major worry along with the tripling of fertiliser prices.

“The difficulty is cashflow. You need to be spending your money now on your fertiliser, but you’re not going to realise that return for quite some time,” he says.

“The other problem is increase in risk. If you get a really dry May, then your crop of barley on a south-facing slope could be completely droughted out.

“I suppose in a normal year that would be really bad, but in a year like this when your input costs have gone up so much, if something like that happens it would be a complete disaster – you could potentially lose everything.”

He says some of his employees and many older people living in villages, are also having to make difficult decisions, especially when it comes to heating their homes.

“You’re rarely on mains gas or anything like that. You’re often heating you house with oil which isn’t subject to the energy price cap,” he says.

“We do [sell] quite a bit of firewood on this farm but in the last two or three months, there’s been a lot of people really quite worried about heating their houses next winter.

“So they’ve been buying in a lot of firewood, with the intention of single-room heating of their house with firewood, rather than turning the central heating on.

“And they’ve been wanting to buy it now while the prices are much more moderate.”

Cost of living: Rural communities without access to mains gas face ‘a tsunami of poverty’, charity warns

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The first of two articles about the impact of rising energy costs on rural areas specifically. Less you thought rural areas were ostensibly affluent!

There’s a warning that “a tsunami of poverty” will hit rural communities if more help isn’t provided to the 14% of British households living without access to mains gas.

Many homes in the countryside which rely on oil, bottled gas, coal and wood to heat and cook are facing rapidly rising bills, made worse due to the volatility caused by the war in Ukraine.

Those alternative fuel sources are not covered by Ofgem’s increased price gap coming into force next month and are often far more expensive than mains supply.

SNP MP Drew Hendry has tabled the Energy Pricing (Off Gas Grid Households) Private Members Bill in parliament to try to provide extra help and protection for households which are off-grid.

He told the Commons last month that those households are forced to pay about four times more for their energy bills than the average home.

The problem mainly affects rural parts of the UK, where mains gas pipes do not reach.

In Cornwall, 47% of homes are off the gas grid.

Mark Carney: Falling oil price ‘negative shock’ for Scotland

I am not usually a conspiracy theorist. My whole life has taught me however that those with the control of the resources rarely lose out in the long run. Whilst we are all celebrating the short term impact of lower fuel prices I do fear we might reap a long term financial headache. The downturn in the North Sea oil industry is one of the first indicators that this is not universally good news. I fear deflation and global instability will (in this very small world) will bring unintended consequences which might wipe the smiles off our faces. I am becoming a bit pessimistic in my old age I fear! This story tells us (and don’t forget the north sea oil supply chain stretches down into England):

Scotland’s economy is likely to be harmed by the collapsing price of oil, the Governor of the Bank of England has said, although most of the effects will be offset by the country’s position in the UK.

Mark Carney told MPs on Wednesday that while the halving of oil prices in the past six months is a “net positive” for the UK, this was not the case in Scotland, whose economy is far more vulnerable to the fortunes of the North Sea oil industry.

“It is a negative shock to the Scottish economy, but it is a negative shock substantially mitigated by the fiscal arrangements in the UK,” he said, suggesting that the blow to Scotland will be cushioned by its union.

Oil has fallen from more than $110 a barrel in July to less than $46 on Wednesday. When Scotland voted to remain in the United Kingdom on September 18, oil was trading just below $100, and the recent developments are seen as weakening nationalists’ case for independence.

The recent declines in the oil price sent inflation in the UK down to 0.5pc in December, a 14-year low. But speaking to the Treasury Select Committee of MPs, Mr Carney repeated his claim that low inflation is unlikely to turn into a problem, and distanced it from the current deflation gripping the eurozone.

Petrol prices push inflation to highest since April 2012

The oil barons are up to their dirty tricks again – stoking the corrosive mix of rising prices and falling wages which gnaws at the innards of sustainable rural communities. This article tells us

The rise in headline inflation to 2.9% will also pose a challenge for the new Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, and his fellow policymakers as they look for ways to boost Britain’s fragile recovery while keeping a lid on living costs. Still, the rate was not as high as the 3% forecast by economists and was well below the 3.1% level that would have forced Carney to write an explanatory open letter to the chancellor, George Osborne.

Economists warned that persistently high inflation would dampen optimism about Britain’s economic prospects following some recent upbeat news.

“There are growing signs of the UK recovery gaining momentum, with the economy set for strong growth in the second quarter and companies reporting the brightest outlook for the year ahead since the financial crisis struck, but inflation clearly remains the UK’s bugbear and calls into question just how long this strong growth can persist for,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at the data specialists Markit.

“High prices look set to continue to erode spending power, curbing the overall pace of economic growth.”

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said its consumer prices measure, based on a basket of goods and services, slipped 0.2% in June from May. But compared with a year ago they were up 2.9%, the highest annual inflation since April 2012. The biggest upward pressure came from petrol and diesel prices, which both rose by around a penny this June but fell in June 2012. There was also upward pressure from clothing prices after summer sales this year did not bring as many discounts as in 2012

Food and petrol prices keep inflation unchanged at 2.7%

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Food and fuel prices continue to rise – continuing to make life in rural places less sustainable according to the Office for National Statistics. This article tells us:

Britain’s cash-strapped households have remained under pressure in the run-up to Christmas, as rising food prices held inflation at 2.7% in November.

Despite hopes that the squeeze on consumers’ finances would start to ease, the Office for National Statistics said the annual inflation rate was unchanged in November, at 2.7%, as measured on the consumer price index.

The ONS said the impact of cheaper petrol on consumers’ pockets was offset by higher household energy bills and the rising price of bread, cereals and vegetables.

Supermarkets cut petrol prices

Does anyone else remember the Government’s announcement last year that it was to introduce a pilot scheme to give a discount on fuel duty of up to 5p per litre on petrol and diesel in island communities? EU competition rules aside, was the pilot scheme a success and has it been rolled out elsewhere?

According to Defra’s the cost of fuel in rural areas report (March 2012) Government will continue to consider options for action. Whilst the Rural Statement recognised the high cost of road fuel, it didn’t set out what Government would be doing to tackle this issue.

Whilst this piece in the Independent will be welcomed by many car drivers, with some supermarket petrol stations reducing costs by 2p per litre,  I’m not sure how the price war will benefit rural residents, many of whom are living in  ‘fuel deserts’.

Energy firms to be forced to give customers lowest tariff

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I am thoroughly cheesed off with privatised pseudo-monopoly companies, which control disproportionate elements of national infrastructure. I was having a heated discussion with some MPs (the circles I sometimes move in!) about this in the context of something else in a very important rural context which shall remain nameless on this theme earlier this week. This article profiles a move to tackle some of the worst excesses of the energy agenda. Can anyone explain to me why there is a justification in what should be a plain dealing world for more than one – lowest – tarrif?

Energy firms will be forced to give all of their customers the lowest tariff available under new laws announced by David Cameron.

In response to mounting concerns over the rising cost of household energy bills – four of the UK’s big six energy firms have already announced above-inflation winter price hikes – Cameron vowed in the Commons to tackle the problem.

“I can announce that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers,” he told MPs during Prime Minister’s Questions.

After the announcement, a spokesman for the prime minister said: “We have asked energy companies to take action themselves and make clear what the lowest available deals are. The point is, in practice this market is not operating for everyone. A small minority of people are actually switching deals, therefore we need to push some of this responsibility on to the energy companies.”

He said customers would have to wait until energy bill was published, possibly in the autumn, for details of how the change would work in practice. The move did not mean energy companies would end up offering only one tariff, as different customers would need different rates, he said.

Oil and petrol price boom looks set to continue

Not much to add to the story trailed in this article – looks like fuel poverty is set to worsen and our transition friends warning of “peak oil” set to grow a step closer!

Brent crude rose $1 at one stage on Wednesday to hit $113 a barrel, suggesting high prices for oil (and petrol) are unlikely to end soon.

The increase was triggered by weekly data from the US government showing stock levels at American refineries continue to decline.

Oil buyers believe pessimistic economic forecasts from the Bank of England and others will encourage a release of more public money into the system via quantitative easing. This will drive economic growth and fuel demand.

Brent blend has already risen by more than 25% since the end of June and spiked to $112.56 earlier this week, partly because of supply issues. North Sea output is declining much faster than expected while platforms are undergoing annual maintenance, which no one wants to rush post-Deepwater Horizon.

Drivers near ‘breaking point’ over fuel prices

This article tells us:

Continuing rises in the price of petrol could drive some motorists off the roads for good, according to a survey.

As many as 38  per cent of drivers said they would give up motoring entirely within a year if prices at the pumps rise at the same rate as they have for the past 12 months. And an increase of 14-15p a litre would lead to 85 per cent of drivers changing their lifestyles, the survey by car valuation company Glass.co.uk found.

Just 2 per cent of the 2,000 motorists polled felt the current price of fuel was reasonable, with 75 per cent saying it was “out of control” or worse. A rise of 14-15p a litre would mean 10 per cent spending less on food at supermarkets, 11 per cent socialising less and 7 per cent cutting back on spending on clothes.

The first 750 responses to this year’s rural survey indicate almost 90 of respondents feel that the biggest threat to rural England is the medium term increase in the cost of fuel. This response is by far the most significant response to any of the specified threats. If you have a view on this please do follow the link for the survey and let me have it!

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