Lib Dems Attack Government Over Cold Christmas Week for Shropshire’s Country Children

Tens of thousands of families nationally face an anxious Christmas Week - because Government isn’t delivering on the £600 rural fuel support grants it promised.

Dozens of Shropshire families are contacting local MPs for updates. Letters to local MP Philip Dunne provide no reassurance.

"I’ve been contacted by anxious residents asking what’s going on" says Lib Dem Heather Kidd, Councillor for Chirbury and Worthen. "Government promised these £600 grants to rural off-grid homes months ago. Still nothing's has been paid."

Peter Phillips, Ludlow Lib Dems President, says ’This just isn’t good enough. Government has promised, this help is urgently needed, they need to get on with it. At very least they should set a payment date."

Government boasts of its mains gas subsidy - nearly £900 per household on average, so families on mains gas can heat their homes - but despite their promises have still done nothing concrete to help Shropshire’s ‘off-grid’ homes. 

Meanwhile Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis discovers Government now says it will pay initial £200 cheques 'in the New Year'. Despite still not having any clear plan to get the money where it’s needed. Government now claims to be ‘working at pace to identify the best method of identifying eligible customers.’ When Shropshire Council could easily target local grants for them.

In parallel it seems the further £400 grants - promised over six months ago - are very much on the back burner. So rural Shropshire families struggling to cope with heating oil and LPG hikes face a cold and anxious Christmas. 

“Life for rural families is tough enough without this” says Lib Dem Chris Naylor, who lives ‘off-grid’ up Batch Valley on the Mynd. “Heating oil and LPG prices have rocketed too, so why should Government just focus their help on mains gas users? I’m inviting fed-up families to contact me - thebatch5195@gmail.com - so we can pressure Ministers to cough up.”