{"id":50576,"date":"2026-10-23T01:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T05:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/10\/23\/elderly-devon-woman-too-scared-to-turn-heating-on-as-costs-soar\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T01:22:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T05:22:44","slug":"elderly-devon-woman-too-scared-to-turn-heating-on-as-costs-soar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/10\/23\/elderly-devon-woman-too-scared-to-turn-heating-on-as-costs-soar\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly Devon woman too scared to turn heating on as costs soar"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Garner-Gatley said she had started going to bed earlier to keep warm while watching television and had recently begun using a hot water bottle and bed socks as evening temperatures dropped.<\/p>\n

She said instead of keeping hot water on a timer, she only switched it on when she needed it for washing, cooking or bathing before turning it off again.<\/p>\n

She added that people living in rural areas who depended on oil had “no choice” but to buy it. <\/p>\n

She said: “After working all my life I didn’t expect to be constantly worrying about how to keep warm at my age. It is really quite frightening.”<\/p>\n

Heating fuel costs have risen by up to 82% since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, according to Minster for Energy Consumers Polly Billington.<\/p>\n

Earlier in October, the government promised better regulation of the sector.<\/p>\n

Ministers said they would tighten up rules, promote competition and give customers clearer compensation routes if things went wrong. <\/p>\n

Minimum order levels set for some customers would also be reviewed, they added.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, said: “We have pledged \u00a353m in support for vulnerable households on heating oil, while helping people switch to clean heat with Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants worth \u00a39,000.<\/p>\n

“We are also reforming the heating oil sector, holding suppliers to account and giving consumers confidence that they will get a fair deal.”<\/p>\n

Cornwall Council and Devon County Council have money available for households struggling with increasing heating oil costs from their crisis resilience funds, which are provided by the government.<\/p>\n

Cornwall Council said it had issued payments of \u00a3300 to 1,386 households, a total spend of \u00a3415,800, which would double after a decision was made to award a further \u00a3300 to the same households.<\/p>\n

The Devon fund, worth about \u00a38.4m a year, is available through district councils, and is targeted at low\u2011income households facing an “essential cost they cannot afford”.<\/p>\n

Plymouth City Council and Torbay Council also have their own crisis resilience funds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garner-Gatley said she had started going to bed earlier to keep warm while watching television and had recently begun using a hot water bottle and bed socks as evening temperatures dropped. She said instead of keeping hot water on a timer, she only switched it on when she needed it for washing, cooking or bathing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}