Warmth centres are set to be opened this winter for people in West Dunbartonshire struggling with soaring energy bills.
West Dunbartonshire Council’s Labour administration last week brought forward plans for warmth centres at public venues – including libraries and community centres –despite voting against a Community Party motion in June calling for these to be set up.
Deputy council leader Michelle McGinty said: “Our primary aim is to try to ensure that we provide help and support for people to be able to stay in their own homes but we will also be exploring the development of a West Dunbartonshire Warmth Network as a practical solution to helping local people in our communities.”
A cost-of-living conference will now be held in Clydebank Town Hall on Saturday, with Councillor McGinty saying: “We have organised a conference so that we can understand what different groups are doing and to explore other ideas that we might want to develop.”
The most recent estimates suggest that combined household energy costs for a typical home in the UK will increase to £3,549 in October, £5,000 in January and £6,000 in April.
Councillor McGinty said it was a “terrifying prospect”, stating: “Working families who have not had to seek help and assistance previously will be forced into making difficult choices between heating and eating.”
In June, a motion from the Community Party’s Jim Bollan called for the creation of “at least three warmth centres for people to attend through the day and evenings to ensure no citizen needs to choose between heating or eating”.
At the time, Councillor McGinty said that any plans should be taken forward by the cost-of-living working group.
She continued: “We should talk to the energy companies to try and keep people in their own homes.
“That should be what we want to do, but I think we also need to look at providing something like these warmth centres.”
Councillor Bollan’s motion received backing from the SNP group, with former leader Jonathan McColl saying: “Everything that Councillor McGinty wishes to happen (with the working group) can happen if that’s how the administration wants to move forward.”
Councillor Bollan hit out at Labour for losing months of planning, warning lives are at stake.
He said: “When the Community Party moved that we set up warmth centres across West Dunbartonshire in council buildings, leisure centres and church halls, all the Labour councillors voted against this proposal. The planning for this needed to start in the summer, not by setting up a sub-committee, conference in September or a network which smacks of passing the buck onto others, with winter round the corner.
“The council has the premises and the capacity to absorb the extra energy costs to create warmth centres, which could save lives this winter if the political will was there.
“After Labour’s refusal to support warmth centres, a voluntary group in the Leven Ward approached me, and we have almost finalised discussions about setting one up in the ward.
“Months have been lost in planning warmth centres. People will die, including suicides, this coming winter by having to choose between eating or heating.”
