Gas price hikes enrage residents (From Basildon Recorder)
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Gas price hikes enrage residents
12:30pm Saturday 2nd March 2013 in Echo News By Luke Lambert
Gas price hikes enrage residents
THE owner of British Gas sparked fury as it revealed a £606million in profits months after hiking customer tariffs.
Centrica said an 11 per cent rise in profits at British Gas residential came after last year's colder-than-normal weather saw gas use leap 12% and in spite of a 1% fall in customer accounts to 15.7 million in 2012.
The results have raised over the fairness of energy bill increases after British Gas raised tariffs by 6 per cent for around 8.4 million households at the end of last year.
South Essex residents have been left angered by the announcement as they battle to live on tight budgets.
Janice Banks, 65, from Canewdon,said she was sick of the price rises and questioned whether they would ever stop.
She said: “These companies know people have to sign up to them so they seem to think it is ok to keep taking from them. People do struggle and I find it difficult to keep up with the price hikes.
“Why would it change? All the while people are cold and need power they can do what they want. They need to think more about the elderly people who find it hard as it is without thinking about all these extra worries.”
Alf Papworth, 79, from Ashdown Crescent, Hadleigh, added: “Our gas prices went up nine per cent this year and we are just expected to accept it and pay without fuss. I questioned the rise but while the gas prices are going up for companies paying customers will feel the sting as well. All the while benefits are being cut as well – no consideration.”
Shadow energy and climate change secretary Caroline Flint said it was time for a "complete overhaul of our energy market".
"People will not understand why, just a few months ago, British Gas claimed they had no option but to put up their prices when now it looks like they're making huge profits on the back of spiralling bills for hard-pressed consumers," she added.
Comments(17)
emcee
says...
1:42pm Sat 2 Mar 13
Laws could, indeed, be passed to ensure profits are directly linked with actual wholesale price and not what the company wants to charge. If the average wholesale price falls during a fixed period (April to April, say) bills must reduce by that amount for the following year. Any price rises must be inline with or below inflation and only imposed yearly.
Energy companies are not like any other company because they have a direct influence on how we live (or die). We have no choice but to use them. For this reason, I believe Governments can, and should, put strict controls on them. Every human deserves to be warm and have food in their bellies. However, energy companies are increasingly denying people the ability to keep warm by charging their extortionate prices, just to keep the fat cats happy. I use "extortionate" in the strict sense of the word.
GrumpyofLeigh
says...
2:15pm Sat 2 Mar 13
Nebs
says...
2:26pm Sat 2 Mar 13
emcee
says...
2:44pm Sat 2 Mar 13
GrumpyofLeigh wrote:£69 is fine if you can afford it. Surely that is not for both gas AND electricity. We pay about that for gas alone.
But for my £69 monthly S/O to British Gas I get a warm house, hot water for the shower and something to cook on. By comparison my £123 per month in Council Tax (soon to be a bit more) gets me...umm....??
More and more people are finding themselves in fuel poverty because of increasingly lower incomes and increasing fuel prices. More poor people, especially the elderly, are having to make choices that people in a modern, first world, society should not have to. Eat or freeze? And all because the energy companies only care about their fat cat shareholders and fat cat management. They should be made to care about the appalling situations they cause the poor and vunerable and the Government (whichever flavour are in power) need to make sure this happens and put the people of this land first rather than allowing the these energy comapnies get away with this extortion.
GrumpyofLeigh
says...
3:12pm Sat 2 Mar 13
Just trying to add a bit of context.
stopmoaning1
says...
4:15pm Sat 2 Mar 13
emcee wrote:Don't use british gas then.
GrumpyofLeigh wrote:£69 is fine if you can afford it. Surely that is not for both gas AND electricity. We pay about that for gas alone.
But for my £69 monthly S/O to British Gas I get a warm house, hot water for the shower and something to cook on. By comparison my £123 per month in Council Tax (soon to be a bit more) gets me...umm....??
More and more people are finding themselves in fuel poverty because of increasingly lower incomes and increasing fuel prices. More poor people, especially the elderly, are having to make choices that people in a modern, first world, society should not have to. Eat or freeze? And all because the energy companies only care about their fat cat shareholders and fat cat management. They should be made to care about the appalling situations they cause the poor and vunerable and the Government (whichever flavour are in power) need to make sure this happens and put the people of this land first rather than allowing the these energy comapnies get away with this extortion.
Compare the market dot com. Lots of good deals.
Simples!
GrumpyofLeigh
says...
4:51pm Sat 2 Mar 13
emcee
says...
5:49pm Sat 2 Mar 13
GrumpyofLeigh wrote:Agreed, you have to pay your CT (no profits allowed, by the way) but at least you can have some say on, or perhaps influence, how your money is spent, whether it be by lobbying your councillor, voting a council in or out and you can even stand as a councillor yourself. You can even ensure they are, indeed, carrying out the tasks that they say are spending your money on and that they are spending the money correctly. Councils also have caps on what they can charge their residents. None of this applies to energy companies, unless you have limited powers as a shareholder.
No, thats gas alone. But its a payment I make out of choice and feel I get value out of it. But its barely half what Southend Council takes from me - where I have no choice - and provides me with very little.
Just trying to add a bit of context.
Your council tax allows you to live in a community that has street cleaning and refuse collection, a police force, a fire brigade, eductaion, a miriad of other local services and amenities. It tries to provide a clean and safe environment for you to live in. As with all taxes it is compulsory. Energy bills are not compulsory but to enable us to be part of a modern society and be able to keep warm and cook
food in our own homes we MUST pay our energy bills, we have no choice.
However, having said all that we could all choose to go and live in a tent on the moors, on boat, become travellers or go and live in a shanty town in some third world country. That way we would not need to pay either the energy companies or CT. :o)
GrumpyofLeigh
says...
6:24pm Sat 2 Mar 13
hin bounds. But where is the REAL comparison at local Govt level when you cannot get a fag paper between the parties?
I accept fully that the whole point of local taxation is to socialise costs and, thereby, provide services for the greater good which cannot be done individually but when do we get ANY input to say "yes, I'm happy to chip in for that" and "no, just stop doing it"?
Carnabackable
says...
7:02pm Sat 2 Mar 13
Shoebury_Cyclist
says...
1:51pm Sun 3 Mar 13
Nebs
says...
2:13pm Sun 3 Mar 13
Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:I think part of the price rises might be due to the increasing wholesale price of gas.
If you vote tory you can't complain about sky high energy prices. They are the direct result of Tory privatisation.
If it was still run as a government department then the cost would be even higher, as they'd still have to buy the gas at the same price but there would be several extra layers of bureaucracy to pay for. Governments of all colours are good at that, keeping staff they don't need and paying over the odds for works on the gas mains.
Think yourself lucky, things could be much worse.
asbo in a coma
says...
5:47pm Sun 3 Mar 13
emcee wrote:you pays your money you take your choice. clearly you expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for your energy consumption which is obviously considerable. the irony is communists consume more because they don't pay for what they use.
All the energy companies are as bad as one another.
Laws could, indeed, be passed to ensure profits are directly linked with actual wholesale price and not what the company wants to charge. If the average wholesale price falls during a fixed period (April to April, say) bills must reduce by that amount for the following year. Any price rises must be inline with or below inflation and only imposed yearly.
Energy companies are not like any other company because they have a direct influence on how we live (or die). We have no choice but to use them. For this reason, I believe Governments can, and should, put strict controls on them. Every human deserves to be warm and have food in their bellies. However, energy companies are increasingly denying people the ability to keep warm by charging their extortionate prices, just to keep the fat cats happy. I use "extortionate" in the strict sense of the word.
asbo in a coma
says...
5:55pm Sun 3 Mar 13
Nebs wrote:you neglect the fact that he expects taxpayer subsidies to fill the gap. there are zero, repeat zero examples in history when anything was run better in the public sector than the private sector but that horsemeat still has to be flogged. birdseye beefburgers all round?
Shoebury_Cyclist wrote:I think part of the price rises might be due to the increasing wholesale price of gas.
If you vote tory you can't complain about sky high energy prices. They are the direct result of Tory privatisation.
If it was still run as a government department then the cost would be even higher, as they'd still have to buy the gas at the same price but there would be several extra layers of bureaucracy to pay for. Governments of all colours are good at that, keeping staff they don't need and paying over the odds for works on the gas mains.
Think yourself lucky, things could be much worse.
shallotman
says...
3:47pm Mon 4 Mar 13
mr_happy
says...
10:05pm Mon 4 Mar 13
whataday says...
1:17pm Sat 2 Mar 13