Young pregnant mum forced out of Slamannan home due to high energy bills

Rachel Short (28) moved from homeless accommodation into the council property in Rashiehill Road with her son Thomas-Ralph (2) two-and-a-half months ago – after waiting for two months to move into the two-bedroom property.

The problem with high energy costs became apparent very quickly.

The mum, who is 19 weeks pregnant, said: “I get £420 a month on Universal Credit and the energy bill from Scottish Power came through at £400 for a month and she was on one of the lowest tariffs. I tried switching but Scottish Power would block that.

“The council were very much aware of what sort of money I had available to me and aware of the situation up there in Slamannan regarding the high energy bills, but no one told me about it.

“Surely they have a duty of care to their tenants to tell them about properties which may come with high energy costs? After a week I went to the council and asked them how they expected me to live like this.

“I couldn’t afford to feed my family. They just told me it was not their issue it was me who took the property.”

She had to rely on help and support from food banks and residents in order to survive. She eventually had to give up.

Rachel said: “In the end I had to leave this really beautiful house in Slamannan – a great place to bring up children – for this private let in Bainsford with no garden which is supposed to be two bedrooms, but it’s really just one bedroom.

“Now in this new property I’m paying £10 a week for electricity and £10 a week for gas. I feel like I have a lot of money now, so I’m going to pay back the people who helped me up in Slamannan, with food parcels and things like that.

“My neighbours were amazing.”

Rachel also received help from Clare Mackie, one of the founders of the Slamannan-based Falkirk’s Forgotten Villages – Ending Fuel Poverty, a campaign which has helped to highlight the extraordinarily high energy bills which residents have been forced to pay in this particular area.

Rachel has now spent all her savings moving to the private property in Bainsford and is still going up and down to Slamannan by bus to collect the rest of her belongings from the Rashiehill Road premises.

A Falkirk Council spokesperson said: “When we advertise a property for let, the advert provides information on the type of heating system which is installed. Therefore, prospective tenants are aware of this before bidding on a property.

“When we conduct a sign up we cannot provide advice on the likely costs of energy, as the energy consumption of the household and potential increases in the cost of energy are unknown variables.

“However, if a tenant approaches us to make us aware of difficulties with the cost of their energy bills, we ensure that they are signposted to the appropriate support. In this case, we referred our tenant for support but it does not appear that our tenant engaged with this process.”

A Scottish Power spokesperson said: “We recognise the issues experienced by some customers in this area and continue to work closely with affected tenants, Falkirk Council and local parliamentarians.

“We’ve been in touch with Ms Short to discuss her individual circumstances and have provided top-up credits during her short tenancy to ensure her power supply remains on. Our next step would have been a home visit to help identify ways of reducing her heating costs.

“This has not been possible due to lockdown and Ms Short has now advised she is giving up the tenancy and requires no further input from us.

“As part of our efforts to address the wider issue, our CEO of ScottishPower Energy Retail, Andrew Ward, attended an open session with Falkirk Council and some of our customers; he also met with the local MP.”

Scottish Power added it had produced and sent out a guide designed to help customers use the heating system more effectively, launched a new fixed price tariff to immediately benefit customers who are using high amounts of electricity, and wrote to customers to raise awareness of the tariff and encourage them to contact our dedicated customer service team and consider the offer.

The spokesman continued: “Our winter emergency fund has paid around £50,000 to the customers who pay their energy using a prepayment meter. Our Community Liaison Officers have conducted home visits to more than 150 customers where we discussed concerns around ongoing billing, raised awareness of the new fixed price tariff, discussed the emergency winter fund and where appropriate advised on more efficient ways to operate their heating system.

“We have also made a £1 million home improvement fund available to Falkirk Council to enhance all homes in becoming more energy efficient. This allows Falkirk Council to direct their financial support towards supporting their tenants in other ways such as replacing the heating systems.”

Collectively, Falkirk’s Forgotten Villages – Ending Fuel Poverty highlighted a number of key points regarding Scottish Power – which the group was able to put to Scottish Power CEO Andrew Ward in person late last year. These included questions over why the firm was not being held accountable for not adjusting people’s rates at the point of an increase/decrease and then not letting them switch supplier and why were residents in rural areas being hit so hard with increases so an average home is paying over £2350 for a year’s usage.During last year’s meeting with residents Mr Ward actually admitted the firm’s customer service had been “terrible”.He added: “It’s just astronomical what you are actually consuming in your homes. I’m responsible for this company so we need to look at this – you have a consumption issue and a potential metering issue which may result in a billing issue.“If there is a problem with the billing then we need to sort it. We don’t have anywhere else in the UK that has such a small nucleus of people who have such a high consumption – we are taking this extremely seriously.”