Karen Trainer, the manager of the Big Venture community centre and shop in Wolverhampton, could barely contain her anger as she watched the news on Wednesday morning.
She was hearing about the comments of the Bank of England economist Huw Pill, who said Britons should stop seeking pay increases and “accept” they are worse off in order to prevent prices rising further.
His choice of language has riled those who come face to face with the reality of the cost of living crisis on a daily basis.
Trainer said: “It feels like people don’t live in the real world. They need to come and spend a day here and see what’s going on. How can people ‘accept’ the fact they can barely afford a loaf of bread? People are in real poverty.”
Fern Lowndes, a fellow volunteer, said: “Unless they’ve seen that person walk through our door in floods of tears, embarrassed to be here, and it’s taken them up to an hour to calm down enough tell you what their situation is, they’ll never understand.”
Wolverhampton is the local authority with the highest fuel poverty rate in England, and the city council was one of the first to set up a network of “warm hubs” to help people with soaring energy costs over winter.
At the time, the council leader, Ian Brookfield, said he was “embarrassed” the scheme was needed. “At the most basic level we are trying to save lives. So I suppose that makes me embarrassed as a nation we’ve come to this,” he said.
Big Venture was one of the venues used as a warm hub over the colder months, and Trainer said a number of people had been calling for it to be brought back as a way to save money on heating bills and combat loneliness.
Trainer said: “We think things are going to get even worse now the government subsidy for gas and electric is finished. Everyone is still going through it and I think people like coming here as we’re all in the same boat. Everyone’s mental health is suffering.”
In the community shop, two volunteers, who have used the service themselves, said Pill’s comments were out of touch with reality. One woman, who asked not to be named, said: “People can’t just get used to it. I know people who’ve been suicidal. Everyone is struggling in one way or another, people just don’t know how to talk about it.”
She has six children and three stepsons at home, and regularly has to juggle spending on heating and eating just to get by.
“I’ll come here to save some money on food and I’ll think, oh, I’ve got £20 left in my purse, that’s £10 on gas, £10 on electric,” she said. “It’s sorting out the heating and getting food for your children, that’s all you can do, and it’s hard at the moment for everybody.”
As he was using the community shop, Sam Hooper, who is a full-time carer for his son, said times were certainly getting harder. “It’s changed so much. I’ve noticed in my gas and electric, oh my God, it’s basically doubled,” he said. “It’s really hard, but places like this are so much help.”
The latest government figures showed personal insolvency rates in the area are higher than the national average, with the local Citizens Advice centre recently warning it is “more and more people who are employed, as well as people in receipt of benefits, who are struggling”.
At the Big Venture centre and the community shop, which sells food at discount prices, volunteers also prepare food parcels for people in need who are referred to the centre by the council or social services. Numbers have escalated since Christmas, they said, and the centre is now preparing up to 10 parcels a day.
Lowndes said: “In the last few weeks it has been absolute mayhem with the food parcels, the amount of people needing them. It’s been worse than normal. People are suffering, it’s hard out there.
“It’s all right for people to say, ‘it’s OK, you can survive’, but unless you see and hear it yourself, you can’t understand what people are going through.”
