GET WARM – GET INFORMED – Saturday 19 March, 11am, Brixton Library

Lambeth pensioners, tenants and residents say, if we can’t afford to heat our own homes, we have a right to make ourselves cosy in any warm building! And we have a right to the information we need so we don’t have to freeze in the future. It cannot be right that every winter, thousands of people die from fuel poverty!
Many people have kept warm – and kept informed – in local libraries. Now so many are sentenced to be shut, abolishing an essential community resource for the sake of ideological austerity. Other life-saving services in Lambeth, including day centres and lunch clubs, which many people use to get warm, meet friends, and stay informed, also under threat.
Meanwhile, the residents of Myatts Field South, having benefited from communal heating at a guaranteed flat rate – especially important for those who are old, ill or disabled – are now being forced into fuel poverty through the imposition of individual boilers by intimidation. They are fighting to keep communal heating and to get insulation and solar panels so they can keep warm. No one should have to choose between heating and eating.
People everywhere are struggling to pay for fuel, while energy suppliers make record profits. And although we have some rights, we have no idea what they are! But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Brixton Reference Library, Brixton Hill, Brixton, London SW2 1JQ

Come join us at Brixton Reference Library on Saturday 19 March. We will make visible the coldness that inhabits our homes and our society, and skill up so we can not only demand what we are already permitted, but so much more: warm, well insulated homes powered by communal and democratically maintained renewable energy, and public spaces which enable and nurture community.
Bring your mum, your dad, your kids, your neighbours, and your experience – we are stronger together!
Organised by Fuel Poverty Action with:

• LAMPAG Lambeth Pensioners Action Group
• LOPA Lambeth Older Peoples Alliance
• MFS TRA Myatts Field South Tenants and Residents Association

Also supported by:

• Friends of Lambeth Libraries
• DPAC Disabled People Against Cuts

Any questions, or want to add your organisation to the list of supporters? Email us on [email protected]m

Have you considered organising a late-winter ‘warm-up’ action?
Based on the principle that we all have a right to come in from cold homes, these safe and friendly direct actions give people a chance to gather somewhere cosy, get information about their rights and speak about their own situations. They are often led by pensioners. In the past, ‘warm-ups’ have been held in shopping centres, a town hall, the Royal Festival Hall foyer, and a City of London bank.
Last November, we warmed up in the House of Commons! See the report below, by journalist Mamasu Kallon.

Protesters hold Parliament ‘warm-up’ over winter deaths

“If we can’t heat our homes, we have a right to warm up in any public building – including Parliament.” This was the stance taken by pensioners at a ‘warm up’ protest inside Parliament’s Central Lobby on Wednesday.
Continue reading “Time to warm up?”

Residents on Myatts Field South estate are fighting Lambeth Council who want to replace their communal heating system with individual boilers.  Several have been to court after refusing to let workers into their flats to install the new system against their will.
Continue reading “Myatts Field South tenants and residents fight for their heating system!”

Introducing Switched On London, a new campaign coalition demanding clean, affordable and democratic energy in the capital through publicly owned energy.
www.switchedonlondon.org.uk | @SwitchedOnLDN
The floods in Cumbria are a reminder of how close to home the impacts of climate change are being felt. Three once-in-a-hundred year floods in ten years aren’t an indication of terrible misfortune, but of a new baseline. As leaders and business executives meet in Paris with the outcome uncertain, in London the fight for clean, affordable energy is being taken in a new direction.
In the face of a cartel of energy companies whose turn to renewables is far too slow — and whose profit-hungry business model leaves thousands struggling between heating and eating in the winter — Switched on London is a new campaign launching to build energy democracy in London. We demand that the GLA (Greater London Authority) sets up a new public energy company that works for people, not for profit.

Continue reading “Seeing the light…”

Guest Blog by Kate Belgrave  
On 25 November, Fuel Poverty Action will take action in parliament against energy companies and welfare cuts.
One of the reasons that I am going is that I have been in personal dispute with Southern Electric for about a year. They take a lot of money from me and I do not like it.
In the last year, Southern Electric has:
Continue reading “Take action against energy companies! I will. Southern Electric is ripping me off”

If we can’t heat our homes, we have a right to warm up in any public building – including Parliament.  We have a right to express our sadness, anger and solidarity with those who have suffered or are suffering. 
On Wednesday 25^th November, we will find out how many thousands of people died last winter because they couldn’t afford to heat their homes.   Join Fuel Poverty Action and Lambeth Pensioners Action Group (LAMPAG) to take action in parliament to show support for those who have died.  Come inside to WARM UP, and speak out to MPs, demanding an end to the unacceptable death and misery caused by fuel poverty! 

Continue reading “Take action against fuel poverty deaths and welfare cuts – 25th Nov”

The Warm Homes Discount has been extended for another year- which means there is another opportunity this winter to get £140 off your electricity bill.
You should automatically get the Discount if qualify for the discount if on 12 July 2015 your electricity supplier was part of the scheme AND you were getting the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit (even if you get Savings Credit as well).
If you don’t automatically qualify but you’re on a low income and/or you get certain means-tested benefits you may be entitled to the Discount. It’s worth checking with your supplier to see if you’re eligible and how to apply.
Scroll down to find your supplier- and note that the numbers of discounts given out are *limited* so it’s worth applying sooner rather than later, as they do ‘run out.’

If you are a customer at a smaller supplier, see if your supplier is signed up to the scheme here and follow the link through to their page to see if you are eligible.
Continue reading “Warm Homes Discount 2015/2016- How to get £140 off your electricity bill”

Guest Blog by Duncan Law, Biofuel Watch 
Join Biofuel Watch in London, 11.00-13.00, the Grocer’s Hall, Princes St, EC2R 8AD, at #AXEDRAX, for a lively protest to expose and oppose burning biomass and coal..
Drax power station is the largest coal-fired power station and single biggest carbon emitter in the UK, and is now also the biggest biomass power station in the world. In return for trashing forests and digging up communities, Drax is receiving massive subsidies when it should have been closed down years ago.
For forests, communities and the climate, it’s time to #axedrax!
#AXEDRAX will unite Coal and Biomass campaigners with others who believe that UK energy policy is stupid and unjust.
Continue reading “What are YOU doing for Earth Day, Wednesday 22 April?”

Spent the winter suffering from your cold home? Worried about the next energy bill that’s due? Want to learn how to deal with energy companies so that you can help yourself and others?
Most of us have spent the winter hidden under piles of blankets in our homes because we can’t afford to heat them properly. Cold homes make us ill and cause misery. They even cause death: each winter thousands of pensioners die from cold homes. We’ve had enough of the rip-off Big Six energy companies and exploitative landlords profiteering from our suffering.
Join Fuel Poverty Action at the Focus E15 mums takeover at ‘Real Estates’ project at PEER Gallery Hoxton. Our energy rights workshop is on Wednesday 18^th at 2pm, Peer Gallery, 97 & 99 Hoxton Street, N1 6QL, our friends the wonderful women at Skills Network have a great-looking workshop after us ‘Intentional Peer Support for the Housing Crisis’ so come down for the whole afternoon if you can! We’ll look at the energy problems we’re facing and what we can do about it and share information on our basic energy rights, including dealing with debt and problems with prepayment meters. Come along and learn your rights and help us plan collective action for warm, healthy homes for all!
Please join and share our facebook event. Hope to see you there!