Inside Britain's 'warm spaces' - where people go when they can't afford to heat their homes
Greenside Cricket Club is one of 65 venues across the borough of Gateshead that have signed up to be "warm spaces" for people - similar schemes have been set up all over the UK sometimes with different names but all doing the same sort of thing.
"It's Victorian isn't it?" asks Hannay Reay as she contemplates just what they are doing.
Some people will need assistance during the coming winter, but this scheme does not feel entirely altruistic, especially just before the Conservative Party Conference, especially before winter has actually arrived.
8 comments:
Isn't this rather similar to the service that local pubs used to provide before taxation and smoking bans made them less welcoming?
What temperature are they going to heat these places to? A little warmer than the unheated homes they expect people to be fleeing from, or really toasty?
The warmer and more comfortable they are, the more freeloaders they will attract. Maybe they should be forced to do an hour's brisk manual work in exchange for every degree of heat. That would warm them up anyway, so they could turn the heating down again.
Some time ago, there was a scheme whereby any pensioner could automatically sign up for an allowance for one warm room in their home, but I don't recall if it stayed long! I know one of my aunts responded!
Woodsy - an old-fashioned pub with a coal fire could do quite well if there are any left.
Sam - bound to attract freeloaders who warm up for an hour or two, have a chat and a cup of tea then clear off to the pub.
Scrobs - one warm room is what we have with the rest of the house on fairly low background heating. We go out almost every day though, so we're not sitting around in the house all day. Today (Sunday) we'll be out walking for hours.
And thus we await the coming cold.
James - doesn't bother us, but we grew up without central heating as did most people of our age.
Just one warm room in this house, as it always has been - the kitchen, with the Aga.
If we watch TV in the evening, we might put the woodburner on in the Snug for an hour or two - that would need about four small logs.
Otherwise it's warm clothing and hot-water bottles.
Central heating does exist (oil-fired) but it's kept for Christmas and the coldest few weeks that follow.
Like many commenters here, we're from the "ice-on-the-inside-of-the-windows" generation.
Peter - we also call our warm room the Snug where the wood-burner is. We're also from the "ice-on-the-inside-of-the-windows" generation but we still have background central heating on during the colder months. We find modern clothing helps too - it can be light but warm.
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