Fuel bill relief for struggling families in the West Midlands

Residents living in Friar Park in Wednesbury are among 10,000 across the region which will be fitted with insulation, solar panels, new doors and windows and greener heating systems to improve living standards.

Sharp rises in gas and electric bills saw people “going out of their minds” as they tried to juggle their finances to cover all their bills.

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said improving the quality of homes is one of their priorities and he welcomed the £167 million energy efficiency fund from the Government announced on Thursday (January 30) as part of the region’s settlement.

Mr Parker visited Friar Park to speak to residents living in homes built between the First and Second World Wars which are now being improved.

Holly Farmer, 30, who has two children aged four and eight, has lived in her three-bedroom house for the past three years.

She said: “We’ve had the loft insulated, had new extractor fans fitted in the bathroom and kitchen and then hopefully the solar panels will be finished.

“We can definitely tell the difference with the loft insulation. Before, we would lose so much heat.

“We were starting to have a problem with little bits of mould. It was a lot to keep on top of every week but since we’ve had the loft done we’ve seen a difference.

“The old fans didn’t work so the new ones are brilliant. Again this helps with the mould.”

She added: “The work has all been done in the last month but we’ve noticed we don’t have to put the heating on so much. Little things like the bathroom, we tend to run the bath and it gets hot enough and we don’t need to have the heating on.

“Moving from a two-bedroom flat, which was high rise so we hardly ever had to put the heating on, to a three-bedroom house – it was a massive increase in bills.

“After Covid, they doubled pretty much and it was hard working part-time. There are things you can’t scrape on when you’ve got children such as the heating and stuff like that.

“In other aspects, such as shopping, you can find ways to bring that down but when it comes to gas and electricity, you can’t with two children. They have to be warm. We’re excited to see what we can get from these changes.

“The fact we’ve gone from October having the heating on throughout the week and now we’re in January and we don’t put it on half as much – I know we will be saving money.

“I’m very grateful I was selected to have this opportunity but there are hundreds of parents out there making that decision of ‘can we afford to put the heating on today?’ and it’s such a shame they are in that position.”

Mother-of-four Sasha Beckford said she was struggling to pay her energy bills which had shot up four times higher than they were before 2022.

She said: “Energy was quite cheap before the price chaos started and then all of a sudden the bills just started going up and up.

“I was literally going out of my mind. I couldn’t afford it. I have to pay my rent, and council tax, maintain the house and look after four children.

“The prices are quite depressing so I’m excited at the prospect of cheaper bills. That’s going to make a big difference to our family budget.”

Work was already being carried out on thousands of homes in the region before the fresh Government announcement.

Mr Parker said: “I’m not only building new social homes we’re investing in existing ones. On this estate, 200 homes are being retrofitted and believe we can reduce bills by 50 per cent.

“Today, the Government has devolved a further £167 million to us so that will give us the funding to invest in a further 10,000 homes.

“We’re not going to just reduce the bills but also make them more secure and give a programme of such a size which will help support young people getting the skills to do the work too.”