Heat and Eat campaign: Energy bills and rising costs of living pushing more and more people over the edge in Northampton

With energy costs skyrocketing by 50 percent in the UK and Northampton food banks warning of booming demand on the horizon, Chronicle & Echo has joined the national 'Heat and Eat Campaign' with its sister papers to draw attention to this looming crisis.

As the cost of living rises, with inflation at a 30-year high of 5.4 percent and energy prices predicted to rise by over 50 percent (as said the Resolution Foundation on January 18), the town's food banks are bracing themselves for their demand to boom by a similar amount.

Hope Centre Northampton, a charitable body that supports marginalised people including the homeless and hungry, hosts a food club that has seen its weekly demand for basic foods multiply several-fold.

While donations during the lockdowns and Christmas have lightened the load so far, that support is expected to fall markedly as people are forced to prioritise their own homes at a time of booming living costs.

Louise Danielczuk, fundraising and marketing manager for Northampton Hope Centre, said: "We saw a big rise during Covid-19, rising from around 30 food parcels per week to plateau at about 120 to 150 per week. Post-Christmas we saw those numbers drop, but we're expecting them to rise again in the coming weeks.

"What we're seeing is people coming into our food club and making their concerns heard, asking whether they can make it through another winter, or even get there.

"During Covid-19, schools helped out a lot. Communities supported others in a significant way. But now that the cost of living is rising, like from the lifting of the fuel price cap back on October 1, 2021, we're expecting that support to steadily decrease as the local community realise that they can't sustain what they are doing currently.

"People will, understandably, start to think 'I can't afford to give as much anymore because my own finances are more strained'.

"So that contributes to the double-edged squeeze we'll be seeing. On one side more people on the lower end of the earning scale, even those on minimum wage or zero hour contracts, will start to struggle, whilst the amount of donations that could be given to help them goes down."

The strain is being felt by more than just the 'usual' groups that people might imagine needing support. Indeed, many more of the 'working poor', people who work full time but still struggle with their bills, are expected to be dragged under amidst the rising expenses.

Olivia Scott, a support worker at Re:Store Northampton, another food bank, said that she has seen their service get 'a lot busier' over Christmas and fears that even more will come as the new year brings a fresh squeeze.

She said: "It's pretty awful, really. People are still recovering from Covid-19 and the mental health impacts of that, only to face these overwhelming bills now.

"We have people visiting our food bank asking 'what am I going to do to? How am I going to get my food bill down even lower?' Longer term I think we'll see many more people ending up in debt to make up the difference and pay their bills and that is a crippling problem.

"We're going to see numbers grow and they will be a lot of people who never would have imagined needing the help of a foodbank. We're seeing people who themselves have given to foodbanks in the past now coming to us for help.

"It's the things we can't escape from that are putting the biggest strain on people. Energy bills are at the top of this list. I think people know that in terms of food, there is provision for them. But when it comes these bill payments, where do you go?

"With all these cuts, like to the £20 uplift for Universal Credit, and the rising prices we're seeing, there's no room for grief, there's no room for an upset to someone's routine who might already be living on the razor's edge."

Some have suggested little changes that could take some of the sting out of the spike.

Jane Wood, chair of Climate Action - West Northamptonshire (CA-WN) said that switching off lights when not in a room, not boiling too much water in the kettle and limiting one's heating to 18 or 19 degrees centigrade can help keep costs down.

But she said even those will do little to address the massive rise in costs, and do even less for those more vulnerable people who need more energy just to stay alive.

Jane said: "While people can make smaller daily changes that are very positive and definitely worth doing, they aren’t likely to offset the full rise in fuel bills.

"Unfortunately the people who are struggling the most to pay higher energy prices will not have the money to invest in extra insulation or double glazing, and vulnerable people, including the very young, elderly and disabled, need warmer homes to look after their health.

"I’d like to see national and local government doing much more to support people with the cost of making their homes more energy-efficient, and with installing renewables such as solar panels and heat pumps.

"There also needs to be extra help for those affected by fuel poverty, as no-one should have to choose between heating their home and feeding themselves or their families.

"Food banks provide a fantastic lifeline, but we have to look at why they are necessary for so many people, a lot of whom are working but aren’t paid enough to meet their living costs.

Anyone who is in need of support can check if they qualify for support from the council on their website.