Heating turned off due to 'astronomical' oil cost

6 hours ago

Ellen Knightin Diddlebury

News image — Amie Watson lives with her family in a rural part of Shropshire where heating oil is commonly used

Ellen Knight/BBC Amie Watson, sat on her sofa, looking into the camera. She is wearing an olive green cable knit jumper, and a long gold necklace. She has long brown hair tucked behind her ears, and a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses. She's sat on a grey sofa with a cushion with a picture of a Highland cow on it. Behind her is a large window, and you can see into the garden where there's a trampoline and a climbing frame. — Amie Watson lives with her family in a rural part of Shropshire where heating oil is commonly used

A family living in a rural village have say they are trying to conserve the last of their heating oil to avoid paying for a refill, after prices shot up in the wake of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Across the UK, people have reported heating oil prices more than doubling and that deliveries are scarce.

Amie Watson and her family, from Diddlebury, in the Shropshire Hills, say they have now turned off their heating.

Watson said they were particularly hit by the price increases as her nine-year-old son, who is in the process of being diagnosed as autistic, "relies on a bath as part of his nightly routine," and they "can't afford to run out of heating oil".

Supplies are running low - Watson said her household had enough oil left to last about three weeks.

The family was just about to order a new delivery of heating oil when the US-Israeli war with Iran began.

"The price has gone astronomical, so we have turned our heating off," Watson said.

"It's stressful knowing that we're going to run out at some point."

Ellen Knight/BBC Close-up of a fuel gauge, which is a white box plugged in to a gold, shiny wall unit. The bars on the fuel gauge are low, with only three visible, about a quarter of the way up. There is a blue label with white writing at the top that reads 'Apollo ultrasonic', and to the right of the bars indicating how full it is there is another label with 'full' at the top and 'empty' at the bottom. — Watson said her household had about three weeks worth of heating and hot water left

As her son's structured routine involves a bath in the evenings, she is prioritising warm water over central heating.

The 38-year-old said the family were "going to have to change our son's routine" by encouraging him to have an evening shower.

"But that then has an impact on school life for him, because his routine has changed," she explained.

The National Autistic Society states that people who have autism "may prefer following set routines" which help them "keep calm and happy".

'I'm not paying'

Watson said the price of filling up her household's heating oil tank had shot up.

"They're not capped, there's no regulation, and I'm not paying £780 for something I could get at £265 less than two weeks ago," she said.

In rural parts of the country, like Shropshire, heating oil is commonly used to heat homes.

"Rural communities are definitely the hardest hit by the price rises," Watson said, adding that as there was less public transport outside towns and cities, "they're also paying the extra fuel price as well".

Watson and her family are holding out hope that warmer weather is on the horizon - as well as lower oil prices.

"It would be good to fill up and not be worrying about whether or not [my son] can take a bath," she said.

The situation is stressful, but Watson said she just had to "do the best I can in a bad situation".

"There are people who are far, far worse off in Iran, and Israel, and all the other countries that are being bombed."

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