Poor left out in the cold
I SEE (Feb 2) that the Green Party is calling for an expansion of Sheffield Council's Affordable Warmth scheme which involves providing folk who live in a state of government defined fuel poverty with free insulation for their properties; on the grounds of saving lives. An entirely laudable policy which as far as it goes I can support.
However, having a well insulated home does not equate with automatically providing a warm, life saving dwelling in itself as advocates of such schemes appear to implicitly assume.
Having spent many years thus far living in a state of fuel poverty, it seems to me that one needs to primarily be able to keep the internal shell of the dwelling up to a comfortable temperature in order to, in turn, maintain a comfortable air space temperature throughout the rooms.
For heat always flows from hotter to cooler sources. Consequently, if the house's internal shell is colder than the rooms' ambient air temperature, then upon engaging the heating the internal shell of walls, ceilings etc., will serve to suck out heat from the air space until an equilibrium temperature is reached.
Ideally the occupant has to be in a position to afford sufficient fuel on an on-going basis to bring about and maintain such a favourable temperature for as long as necessary.
It's not simply a case of getting the rooms up to temperature then relying on the insulation alone to keep it warm for a prolonged period.
However, despite insulation, achieving such a desired state of affairs proves impossible for millions of people due to simply a lack of sufficient money to cover the cost of their needs. Which in the case of benefit claimants and state pensioners is due to the fact that the purchasing power of their disposable income is set at 1980 levels and has increased only in line with the overall 'average' figure for annual inflation; whilst (especially in more recent times) the cost of fuel and other basic necessities of life has risen in advance of such.
Consequently, people who didn't have enough money to effectively cope in the first place now find further demands on an inadequate disposable income, placing them in the dilemma of deciding whether to spend on heating or eating, for example.
It's true some do get a little piecemeal extra help, but many living on low incomes (hence in fuel poverty) do not. Yet being human they are prone to hypothermia, a fact that the major parties appear to ignore, preferring to leave people to their doom rather than provide effective alleviation of their plight.
Then they wonder why people don't vote for them!
Michael Parker,
Robertshaw Crescent, Deepcar
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Weather for Sheffield
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -3 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Light sleet
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
