It’s mid-November and Barbara Johnson explains that she’s yet to use her central heating since the winter started to draw in.
The 81-year-old says it has only been turned on once for five minutes, just to check that it is still working. To keep away the cold she’s been living solely in her front room, the room she can afford to keep the warmest while the rest of her house is “freezing cold.”
“It’s one of the more challenging situations I've found myself in,” Barbara tells the ECHO in high spirits, “I was living quite comfortably before all of these bills come in.” A £2,500 energy price cap freeze was introduced in September, but this figure is almost double what the average household would have been paying 12 months ago.
READ MORE: 'Everything is a struggle’ - Merseyside in crisis mode as winter challenges loom
Barbara told the ECHO: “It is scary. It's only going to get worse. The bills have been affecting me a lot - two months of my pension goes on energy and a couple of direct debits. They say pensioners aren't poor but they are.
“I can't get my head around half of what's going on.” There’s little respite when it comes to shopping for essentials due to inflation, Barbara adds.
Barbara is spending the morning at a knitting club run by Sefton Older Persons Enabling Resource Association (OPERA), housed upstairs in a converted church on Stanley Road, Bootle. The club has been running separately for a while, but as of Monday Sefton OPERA opened its doors as ‘warm bank’.
It’s one of many buildings across the borough that will be offering residents somewhere free and accessible to keep warm this winter as the temperature drops. The initiative of ‘warm hubs’ is a joint scheme between Sefton Council and its Voluntary Service, who’re working with organisations such as OPERA so that those concerned about energy bills don’t have to suffer the cold at home on their own.
The spaces will provide heated rooms where people can drop in for a cup of tea, but they’re also being used to bring people together in challenging times. Also attending today’s drop in is Aileen Heitman.
Similar to her friend Barbara, the 77-year-old says she’s only put the central heating “on once” through this autumn and winter, adding: “but I'm hanging on.” Instead Aileen has found herself sitting closer and closer to the fire, which she keeps on low despite days when it's cold. She does this in anticipation of the full impact of inflated energy bills.
Aileen told the ECHO: “You have to be careful. Wear extra clothes, knit a new blanket. Put a blanket around you. I’ve always had to make do, that comes natural to me. But I know it’s hard for other people - it's going to be challenging.”
A 78-year-old volunteer at Sefton OPERA, who asked to not be named, told the ECHO how it is becoming “extremely difficult” to heat a home, especially when living alone. She believes many pensioners are being cut out by the benefits gap, meaning that they are not eligible for further support and therefore left in challenging situations as the price of energy and food rises.
The volunteer added: “I’m sitting in the house in a coat and going to bed at 8.30 every night to stay warm. I come here to get warm and not be stuck in the house.
“Old people used to go into shops to keep warm but so many have now closed on the high street. The cost of living has made things 10 times worse. It’s putting a squeeze on the most vulnerable outside of the benefits gap.”
Margy Robinson, 65, is the development manager at Sefton OPERA, which has been running for the last 23 years. While its Bootle premise will be acting as a warm hub this winter, she’s keen to highlight the more encompassing offer - even though the difficulty of the cost of living has led to drastic measures.
Margy told the ECHO: “The warm hub is an opportunity for people to come together and to meet in whatever format. But as the winter comes in, it will become more of an essential service.
“The cold is going to impact [older people’s] health and wellbeing. There are people who aren't putting their heating on so they can eat. We have got a stock of food which we’ve been able to give them out so they have something. It's really hard for people but we'll get there in the end.”
“As it stands, it's quite a sad state of affairs that we're having to introduce this as part of the local offer,'' says Steven Penn, 34, visiting today’s drop in and part of Sefton Council Voluntary Service. He added: “We expect to see a massive uptake on the programme in the coming months, but it's a testament to the organisations that they've stepped up and offered their space as a warm space.”
In the view of Cllr Trish Hardy, Sefton Council cabinet member for communities and housing, the current challenge of the cost of living crisis means that a few people will not be impacted. Speaking from within Sefton OPERA’s warm hub, she told the ECHO: “We were realising this crisis we're in now isn't just going to affect the normal people who use our services.
“It's much more broader - people who might be in the position where they can't heat their homes and not be able to eat at the same time. We wanted to be able to do something [about it.]
“The years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging. This is on the back of 10 years of austerity where we've had to use reserves and funding.
“It’s a precarious situation but we can't allow Sefton residents to fall down through no fault of their own.”
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