Fuel bills need a lighter touch

Motorists are now paying record amounts at the pumps – and household energy bills have been allowed to rocket in recent times. The

consequence is many families, particularly pensioners on fixed incomes, being unable to afford to heat their homes.

On too many occasions, there has been no correlation between increases and decreases in wholesale energy costs, and the actual charges levied by utility companies.

Such firms are happy to pass on their extra costs to consumers, while remaining reluctant to pass on any reductions in their own overheads.

The result is a growing level of exasperation which will be fuelled, still further, by today's report which reveals the extent to which street lighting costs have increased in recent years – and how, ultimately, it is the public who are having to foot this rise through increased council tax bills.

It is why there needs to be a thorough reappraisal of this double whammy to ensure the desire of energy suppliers to boost their profits, ostensibly to pay for investment programmes, is not to the detriment of the wider public.

Switching off the street lights at night – an approach examined by

some councils – is, frankly, a non-starter because of the road safety implications.

Yet this should not preclude all local authorities from following Sheffield's example and looking at how its lights can be made more energy efficient. It has concluded that there is considerable scope for long-term savings by replacing out-of-date street lamps, and the effectiveness of this policy needs to be closely monitored.

In the meantime, each council should look to negotiate longer-term energy deals with suppliers that have the potential to keep costs in check. Energy firms offer such deals to individual households; such an approach should, also, apply to large organisations from both the public and private sector.