Metro Mayor Dan Norris writes for The Journal readers and WECA residents: My plea to you all - Stay warm and stay safe

We had a little taster of really chilly weather in December but for too many people reports of snow flurries doesn’t bring hope of snowman building, snow angel making, or perhaps heading out to enjoy that perfect sled run, but a sense of fear and foreboding.

As the mercury plunges to bone-chilling lows, many North East Somerset residents face shivering inside and out. Why? Because they simply cannot afford to pay sky-high energy bills.

Fuel bills are double what they were last winter. Double. And it’s going to keep on being tough with an average household bill in April 2023 set to be over £1,000 more than it was just twelve months ago.

Sadly, that means people face the agonizing choice of more financial hardship, or risking the health of themselves and their families.

As your Metro Mayor, I’m not prepared to stand by while people shiver in their own homes. That’s why I’ve invested in emergency support to keep vital energy advice services running this winter. Those charities were running on empty and needed support to keep going. This includes a dedicated telephone advice service meaning locals can get support on managing their bills, and keeping warm through these tough winter months. It’s completely free for anyone to call up on: 08000822234.

This is all part of a campaign I’m running to encourage local people to stay warm and well while reducing bills with energy-saving tips accessible here: https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/keepwarm/

There is also information available on how you can invest to make your home more energy efficient which is important not only now in the winter, but to keep cool in the summer and help us tackle the climate emergency, and meet those ambitious 2030 net-zero targets.

There are 250,000 homes in our region that need retrofitting and I have also brought forward £5 million to get on with this.

But even with this additional support, our communities still face perilous decisions these next few months. That’s why I’m appealing to government ministers to do the decent thing and provide urgent, targeted support to the most hard-pressed households now.

And it’s simply immoral to continue to put company profit before people by resisting a proper windfall tax on the unexpected profits of fossil fuel giants. The extra cash raised should be channelled into schemes, like my retrofitting programme.

Keeping rooms warm that you use a lot, like the living room or bedroom, is important for your health. It’s heartbreaking to see children and pensioners in our region living in cold, damp homes. But it’s also dangerous. Low indoor temperatures can have a serious impact on your health, with all the knock-on effects for our under-pressure NHS.

This isn’t the hopeful happy new year message I’d have liked to write. But I do promise I will do all I can to help during this awful winter cost-of-living crisis, and I know local people in our fantastic communities will be doing everything they can to provide vital support too.