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'We are rationing heating oil in our rural pub'

Ellen Knightin Snailbeach
News imageEllen Knight/BBC Sproson-Jones is photographed looking into the camera with a serious expression. She is wearing a black blouse with white and green flowers, and a black cardigan. Her hair is long and blonde, and is tied back in a half-up hairstyle. She's also wearing a pair of dark-framed glasses. She's sat next to a black log burner, which is lit and has flames inside. The walls of the pub and fireplace are exposed grey stone, with a window behind her. Ellen Knight/BBC
The Stiperstones Inn is making use of log burners to keep the pub warm while it rations heating oil

The landlady of a country pub says she has had to ration her heating oil after prices shot up in the wake of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Market analysts are waiting to see how the conflict, which has widened to neighbouring Gulf states, will impact on UK household gas and electricity prices. However, the price of heating oil has already been affected, and unlike the other energy provision, is not subject to price caps.

Campaigners say heating oil prices have more than doubled and orders have been limited.

Lara Sproson-Jones who runs the Stiperstones Inn said that despite the "huge increase", she could not turn off the heating because "if it's cold, people don't stay".

She said that in February, before the conflict, she ordered heating oil for "approximately 60p, 62p a litre", but the cost had since risen to £1.40 per litre.

Sproson-Jones added that to order 500 litres - the minimum order limit - it would now cost her £750. A week ago, the same quantity would have cost "just under £400", she said.

She told the BBC she was hoping to ride out the worst of the price surge at the premises in Snailbeach by limiting usage, then make it to the warmer weeks of April before buying more.

Many people in rural counties such as Shropshire also use heating oil to warm their homes,

News imageEllen Knight/BBC Photograph of Sproson-Jones lifting up the lid of one of the oil tanks. She's wearing black trousers, a black cardigan, and a black floral blouse underneath. Her long blonde hair is tied back into a half-up hairstyle, and she's also wearing a pair of dark-framed glasses. The oil tank is large, coming up to about chest height, and is made of dark green plastic with a large black hatch which Sproson-Jones is lifting up. Behind it is a blue-painted fence, with some rooftops seen beyond the fence. The sky is grey and overcast. Ellen Knight/BBC
Sproson-Jones is having to divide her remaining heating oil between the pub and holiday cottages

The Stiperstones Inn additionally operates a holiday let, meaning the team there has to balance the pub's needs for heating and hot water with that of their visitors.

"I'm kind of betting on the fact that it's going to be a short-term increase," Sproson-Jones said, adding that she was "physically moving oil from one tank to another" in order to keep both the pub and the holiday cottage warm.

But the 51-year-old admitted that while she was "confident that we have enough oil to get us through [to] the other side of Easter", she was "not confident the market will come down".

"We're going to have to buy [oil] either way," she said.

'Dragged into world problems'

While the pub can build up its log fires and Sproson-Jones can turn down her thermostat in her home upstairs, she said that with holiday cottages "you can't ask [visitors] to just put a jumper on".

And in the pub, "we have a lot of elderly people come in to save on their own heating", she added.

"They sit here, they have coffees, they have something to eat - so we need the heating on."

She said she felt "cross" about the situation her pub was in.

She added, however: "All I've got is an increase in my heating oil - I'm not being bombed.

"But it's very annoying to be dragged into problems of the world stage when we're out here in the middle of Shropshire."

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