Thousands of households in Wiltshire are suffering from fuel poverty, according to new figures.
Data from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) shows that eight per cent of the 213,598 households in Wiltshire faced energy bills that pushed them into poverty in 2018 - the most recent year for which figures are available.
It means 17,540 of households in the area were fuel poor, with the rate falling from nine per cent in 2017.
Fuel poverty means living in an inadequately heated home. Cold homes can result in high fuel bills, poor health, and cause people to take longer to recover from illnesses, particularly those recently discharged from hospital.
This is a reduction across Wiltshire from 2015 when 20,523 households are in fuel poverty (Department for the Environment and Climate Change, 2015), but there is still some way to go to eradicate fuel poverty and its likely that impact and uncertainty of Covid19 may cause the situation to deteriorate.
In the South West, nine per cent of households could not afford to pay their bills in 2018.