Closing post
Time to wrap up, ahead of tomorrow morning’s grim energy price cap announcement.
Here’s today’s main stories, on the energy crisis:
And also on the UK’s looming carbon-dioxide crisis:
The cost of living squeeze:
And also:
The Lancashire town of Burnley suffers the highest inflation rate in the UK – 11.5%, due to high poverty levels, poor home energy efficiency and greater reliance on private car use.
My colleague Mabel Banfield-Nwachi reports that pressure on households is rising:
Families are leaning on local services, charities and the generosity of others to help them afford even the basics. However, the leader of Burnley council, Afrasiab Anwar, says there is only so much goodwill they can rely on as more people struggle to get by and local services are stretched.
In 2020, the council set up a charity in partnership with other local organisations to support the community during the pandemic. People could call Burnley Together for support to set up a debt repayment plan, get emergency food parcels, and advice on what benefits they were eligible for. It was supposed to be a short-term solution. Two years later, its services are expanding.
“The frightening thing is that it’s not just who you’d typically regard as people who need that support. It’s working families that are struggling to make ends meet and it’s only going to get harder in autumn,” says Anwar. “It’s not just those who are the most vulnerable, it’s going to hit everybody.”
Since 2010, the council’s funding has dropped by 36%, approximately £5m a year. “For a small council like ours, that’s massive,” Anwar says. “The government always talks about levelling up, but we have not seen that. We’ve gone backwards.”
Here’s the full piece:
