Heating Payment scheme that causes waste...

A resident writes... "An eighth of my income goes to pay for heating which is the same price every week regardless of how much or little I use (so it`s impossible to be economical or to benefit from careful management of the radiator controls or careful use of hot water).

I understand that every household in this neighbourhood has a similar problem with the heating and hot water service (which is run from a central location - district heating).

I have mentioned the unfairness of this arrangement (where every household pays the same regardless of how much or how little they use) to many council officers over the years and eventually they suggested the new Neighbourhood Management Board may be able to put the matter right. (It`s been wrong for at least the sixteen years that I've lived here which amounts to hundreds, individually and thousands collectively, of pounds tenants have wasted and have had no choice but to waste).

This is a shameful state of affairs, in an area where so many of us are living on benefits or low wages, and should have been addressed many years ago. I, for one, am very angry about this as I struggle every week to make ends meet. There's over £13 I have to pay out immediately even if I go away for a few days; this is the same in summer, when people have their windows wide open to cool down, as it is in winter.

This situation is also in breach, I suspect, of central government guidelines and possibly the law because it is a blatant misuse and overuse and unnecessary use of precious energy (in this case gas and oil and a certain amount of electricity). This is because many people fail to regulate their use of the heating and hot water because they gain no financial benefit from doing so and so possibly thousands of radiators are left on warming thousands of rooms that nobody is occupying all of the time that they are kept warm."

Article Written by Heather Lyons
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written Dec 1st 2007
Date last Modified Dec 6th 2007
Status: Article in Progress

Zag - The Graffiti Vandal Update...

On the 2nd of November we received an email from a visitor to our website from someone at a local college who recognises who "zag" is.

We are currently following up that information with the college concerned.

Recycling not being taken seriously by LCC...

Though I pointed out that there is sufficient space near to the Highfields Centre car park for three or four recycling bins for say glass, newspaper, cardboard and tins (all of which can be recycled), there are still no recycling bins in the area (that are not exclusive to certain maisonettes), there or anywhere else in the neighbourhood.

I suggested this space because it is far away from residences and therefore the sound of people throwing glass bottles, for instance, into the container will be less disturbing for the residents.

I still have to carry heavy loads of newspaper and glass regularly down into town (near the back of Sainsbury`s) or over Spinney Hill Park (down near the police station) which is very draining on personal energy.

I suspect that the agencies themselves are not as motivated to co-operate with these modern initiatives as we would like and that we still do not have the power to make them do what they ought to do which is provide the necessary bins within St Peters so that everybody can do "their bit" for the planet right here where they live.

I do feel very strongly about this issue and I do feel that it has not been given the priority it deserves even though it has government backing and scientific credibility and support.

Article Written by Heather Lyons
Photography by Albert Berer
Date Written Dec 6th 2007
Date last Modified Dec 6th 2007
Status: Article in Progress