'I'm keeping just one room warm': Tower block residents speak out after social landlord quadruples gas prices overnight
Pensioners living in two Walsall tower blocks feel like ‘second class citizens’ after a social landlord quadrupled their heating and hot water bills overnight.
It is now cheaper to boil a full kettle than it is to fill a washing-up bowl with warm water, according to residents in Woodall and Hamilton House, both in Bloxwich.
On October 1, tenants in Woodall House saw their prices go from 4p/kWh to 13.75p/kWh, while the unit price in Hamilton House increased from 4p/kWh to 17.67p/kWh.
Walsall Housing Group (WHG) removed individual boilers from each flat in 2021 "to keep customers safe" and instead installed a central heat network at both blocks.
WHG said that since installation it "covered a large part of the expense" but said it could no longer "subsidise the low rates".
Residents David Turner, 73, and Bill Froggatt, 78, said they both expected an increase, but did not expect the prices to triple and quadruple.
David said: “I’m very frugal with my heating anyway, perhaps it’s the way I’ve been brought up. I stop in the middle room because it’s small so I’m keeping just one room warm.
“Even then I’m using £3 a day. It is really astronomical.
“I wouldn’t expect everybody else to do what I’m doing. I’ve got arthritis so I do feel the cold.”
Kathleen Haughton, the ‘oldest resident’ in one block at the age of 96, can’t understand the new prices.
She said: “We had a meeting in the community room and they’d already put it up. I couldn’t understand it. We’d like to see the prices go down. You’ve got to have your heating on sitting in your flat.”
