I posted earlier this week on the issue of fuel poverty, noting that around 100 people die each year in the borough of Lewisham from cold-related causes. The latest available Government figures, as discussed in Parliament in November 2011, show that in 2008 an estimated 83,000 households in South East London were unable to afford to keep themselves warm in cold periods. With rising fuel prices and decreasing incomes, the position has no doubt got worse since then.
On Friday evening a protest took place at Lewisham Town Hall in Catford as part of a Fuel Poverty Action weekend of action.
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| 'Bring down the Bills! Energy for our needs! Not corporate greed' Banner at Lewisham Town Hall |
They report: '30-40 activists and residents from Lewisham occupied and warmed-up inside Lewisham Town Hall. They staged a peoples’ forum inside, where people shared their experiences of unaffordable energy bills and expressed their anger at the profiteering energy companies and complicit government. People discussed the many examples of community controlled renewable energy projects across the country and how we might transition Lewisham and, more broadly, the UK, to a democratic energy system that works for people’s needs, not for corporate greed. After the peoples’ forum, people moved outside and got even more toasty around a bonfire of burning energy bills'.
See also report at East London Lines.
For information on support available from Lewisham Council see here.
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