Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Colin Drury

‘We can’t pay what we don’t have’: Rotherham shivers at ‘terrifying’ energy price hikes

Alamy

On a day so glorious that the fountains in Rotherham town centre were filled with splashing children, it was strange, said one mother, Rebecca Hawthorne, to be preoccupied with winter. But, still, she couldn’t stop thinking about what was to come.

“You work your arse off and at the end of the month, you’re paying so much [on essentials], you still have less money than you started with,” the 42-year-old postal worker said. “We have two young children. What do we tell them? No, you can’t have the heating on?”

The average household energy bill will hit £3,549 a year from 1 October after regulator Ofgem announced an 80 per cent price cap increase on cap on Friday.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.