Community centres and places of worship are "concerned" about the cost of heating buildings in the icy weather after energy bills soared this year.
As places where elderly and isolated members of the community go to socialise, get support and stay warm, community hubs don't see turning off the heating as an option, no matter the cost. But with temperatures dropping as low as -6C in Merseyside overnight, these centres will have to find a way to pay with their often limited funds.
Major Chris Herbert is co-leader of Walton Salvation Army, which runs a foodbank, warm hub and financial advice sessions at its church and community centre on Cavendish Drive. They've turned their boilers up to keep the building warm as the temperature outside drops, and as they prepare next year's budget, they're making room for this and rising energy bills.
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On average, energy bills went up 54% when the price cap was raised in April 2022. They were due to go up again in October until the government scrapped the rise, but the cap is due to be increased once more in April, and this plays on Chris' mind.
He told the ECHO: "We're concerned about it, but we have to trust that somehow we will make ends meet and, ultimately, the people we're serving are more important than some financial cost, so we'll keep heating the place so that people coming in feel welcome and feel valued and feel cared for, and then we'll deal with energy costs as they come."
Across the water in Birkenhead, the Wirral Deen Centre pays roughly £600 a month to heat its mosque and community centre, which usually hosts 20 to 30 people a day. Funded through member donations and grants, it hasn't had to set aside a large portion of its budget for utility costs until now.
With its fixed tariff ending in February, trustee Ibrahim Syed said they'll "have to think about where we get the money from". Like the Salvation Army in Walton, the Islamic centre plays an important role for the 3,000 Muslims on the Wirral and the wider community, which means cutting back on heating is far down the list of priorities.
Ibrahim said: "What we do is we feed children. We do a homework club and we feed the kids. People are struggling with food costs, so this is not exclusively Muslim kids and we've had quite a big uptake, so we have 40 kids on a Thursday night. Parents and families rely on getting a hot meal and getting their homework done. People look to us as a place of worship, as a place of sanctity to go to to warm up or to charge their phone."
He added: "The thing is, you can't turn the heating off because people are there. People come there as a place of sanctity, so you can't turn the heating off."
Some centres face particular challenges in catering for an aging population, like the Irish community served by Liverpool Irish Centre on Boundary Lane, Everton. Its Tardis-like building hosts Irish language classes in one room, Irish dancing in the hall next door, and Spanish classes in a heated shed outside, all at the same time.
This is on top of a bar, a shop and pantomime rehearsals, so keeping the building heated and lit is no cheap feat. They've made changes to keep bills down, like installing more energy-efficient LED light bulbs and using sensor lights in the toilets.
Angela Billing said: "We are are keeping a close eye on our usage, but this as difficult as our community rely on the centre for a warm place to drop in and have a cup of tea. A lot of our users are elderly during the day, and also activities such as the mother and baby classes need a warm, cosy environment.
"We try and hold events together in different rooms to utilise the heating of the centre. We try to keep in touch with our elderly and housebound community especially in this icy weather - we were able to deliver 40 free hampers from our Irish shop to them last week."
Fortunately some centres are small enough to keep the bills down. Natan Fagleman is the rabbi at Allerton Hebrew Congregation, a hub of Liverpool's Jewish community, which is growing again after dropping in size from 10,000 at its peak to 2,000 now. Rabbi Natan told the ECHO: "We are lucky to have a small building which is thankfully not too expensive to heat. I imagine the bigger, more cavernous places of worship will be struggling more than we are."
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