AIBU to be worried about rising fuel and energy costs this winter?

Fewer and fewer people use buses. It’s a vicious circle. I know that the local bus company is run on very tight margins and the buses they use are not top of the range and I never bought brand-new.

I would say that the electorate is not interested in subsidising a transport system that mostly is being irrelevant. I wish it were different. There seems to be no comprehension that a better system would have to be paid for. Currently, it only viable if it runs on subsidies, as it is..

Who is blaming the government? And as I’ve said, the governments OWN STATISTICS do not reflect that is in an issue with “greed of large companies”
If more than 50% of UC have no requirements to work, shouldn’t we be looking at why?

I'm really worried. I have all electric heating with old storage heaters.

Luckily I am retired so no longer have to drive to work, but I do have to drive very regularly to my very elderly parents with a 300 mile round trip. I have no choice with this, but the cost of petrol it's becoming really worrying as to how long I can actually afford to do this.
I use the bus if I go anywhere else.

In Scotland the Young Scot card allows young people free bus travel up to the age of 21 or 22. Sorry I can't remember. But it makes a huge difference to their independence as they reach high school age.

One of my DC has a C+1 as he's classed as disabled so I get on the bus for free as his companion.

Depending on which part of Scotland you live, some get free access to trams too.

More needs to be done in rUK to follow suit and make it accessible for all.

No investment for years & a lot of the electorate aren’t interested in voting for things that would improve the lives of the young.

Only around one third of UC are in any kind of work. Interestingly, the government don’t monitor how many hours, so how many are in full time work is unknown. But it won’t be all of them, would you agree?
The highest proportion of UC (50% and rising) is paid to the “no working requirements” group.
If employees are not being properly paid, I agree, that needs addressing, but this narrative that the majority of UC is paid to the full time “working poor” is not supported by the governments own statistics.

Honestly, I just want to cry. Petrol is 179 here and I live 20 miles away from nearest small town, and 10 miles away from the children’s school. On an average day I need to travel 80 miles just for school and work. Buses are very limited and don’t match up time-wise at all.

I still fail to understand how we have such a poor and expensive public transport system. I can’t understand that a train ticket costs more than a flight or that young people can’t use railcards for season tickets. Make it cost effective and no brainer for people to use trains instead of cars, better for the environment too.

If you’re on oil the BUS is very generous.
www.gov.uk/apply-boiler-upgrade-scheme/what-you-can-get

To be fair, the current government subsidies for bus travel are very generous. It’s really helped us with the cost of our son getting to college.
We’ve switched to electric cars which also helps (no available bus routes to get to work).

We’ve just filled the oil tank at double the cost of the last fill. I’m thankful that menopause has made me run hot and no longer feel the cold.

President Fart is the root cause of it. He is so stupid; why don’t his advisors keep him busy building big structures and just make all the policies themselves?
On the positive side, currently government subsidies for air source heat pumps are very generous and as a result we are able to switch from oil heating to a heat pump which will save us thousands (currently costs us around £1000 for half a tank of oil).

I’m honestly thinking it would be cheaper to book a 6 mth out of season hotel room in Spain than funding a winter here .

You probably know this, but in case anyone doesn’t, if your employer pays below the 55p rate, you can claim tax relief on the gap. Obviously it’s not as good as if the employer paid it but if you do a lot of mileage then it’s probably worth doing.

Also your employer needs to make sure your necessary expenses don’t take you below NMW. For NMW purposes, it’s actual expenses (so actual fuel costs), not the 55p rate.

As I said on the other thread, it’s not “worried” that we should be. We need to be ANGRY. The millionaire politicians need to notice that we are being bitten on all sides by the ever-increasing costs (and I say that one reason for some of them was month after month of LOCKDOWN, something being quietly forgotten). If the politicians are quietly doing nothing to try to price people off the road, like Sir Tony fucking Bliar did, then they should be making other things trains more affordable. (And don’t say “get an EV, mine costs nothing to run” the set up costs and repairs are very, very high.)

Sooner or later, the people will rise up in anger, especially those who need to drive to earn their living. At the moment, they’re just tutting and sighing about high prices, and getting angry about immigration instead, but the public anger might happen eventually, when their earnings are wiped out by the cost of getting to work. The government isn’t even bothering with the Boris Johnson approach of waffling complete nonsense while doing precisely nothing.

The trouble is that rising fuel costs affects everything - even if you don’t drive, and cut back on household heating.

Companies have to pay more, such as farmers and manufacturers/importers, so food, and everything else, goes up and up. 🤷‍♀️

We’re planning to have heating on quite a bit lower than usual and for less hours than usual but still enough to keep the house dry and mould free.

God help those who are struggling to do even that. I hope there will at least be warm community places open during the day for them especially the elderly and those who are less mobile.

Yanbu. My fixed price duel fuel is coming to an end and will go from 180 a month to £245 a month. I've never had such a leap before.

Asking people to come into the office more should also be discouraged. The cost of transport for most people is more than extra energy costs at home.

True

I advise against this. We did this one year and ended up with mould in the rooms that we didn't heat. Even if you put the hearing on just for an hour a day it will help.

It’s all very depressing

Now the Saudi Aramco deliveries have stopped, things will get a lot worse. Petrol will be £2 a litre by next month, diesel £2:30. I think the government should cut fuel duty for a few months. They are making millions extra off high fuel prices. They talk about windfall taxes on Oil and Gas companies, but they are doing exactly the same thing themselves, the extra fuel duty they are making now is a windfall. It should be given back to the people, we need it more than they do.