Coal provides much needed relief for island communities

A charity working to support some of the UK’s most remote communities says that a supply of coal can make a huge difference to households struggling to heat their homes.

Tighean Innse Gall (TIG), which helps vulnerable people across the Western isles in Scotland, gained funding from its local authority, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, in 2023 to provide a mix of support to those feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis.

They received a £30,000 energy fund, of which they use around half to supply 87 homes – many of which are off-grid and use alternative fuels to gas – with bags of coal.

The charity worked with three local companies to supply islanders with much-needed fuel, so they were able to heat their homes efficiently during the colder months.

Kirsty MacLeod, Energy Advice Manager at TIG, said the campaign proved really successful, with the charity hoping to replicate the work this winter.

Kirsty said:

“It was the first campaign of its kind, but we’d wanted to try and do something like this for a while.

“The fund allowed us to not only provide fuel vouchers for people on prepayment meters but also coal and bottles of gas, so people were able to heat specific areas of their home.

“The need for support like this is definitely increasing because of the cost-of-living crisis. People are restricting their heating use and self-rationing. We knew it was happening, but the situation is substantially worse that we thought.

“Many of the people we support are heavily reliant on open fires and stoves. We have a lot of large homes, so people tend to heat their kitchens during the day and living rooms at night. These large homes, and our windy weather, also means they’re more susceptible to heat loss.

“Often, these homes used to house six or seven people but now there are only one or two people living in them, which means they don’t want to put the central heating on to heat the whole house, which would cost considerably more.

“The need to heat homes through coal is widespread in our community and things have become a lot more expensive recently – the price of coal has drastically increased the last few years.

“It’s great that we were able to provide different kinds of support. And hopefully we’ll be able to do so again in 2024.”

The project supported people like the Smyth* family, which consisted of two adults and two children. With the main earner being a fisherman, income fluctuated due to the weather and catch. The household was finding it difficult to heat the home with the increased costs of electricity and coal. TIG were able to give the clients nine bags of coal, giving them around two months’ worth of heating and easing a lot of their worries in the process.

TIG have also identified that the energy debt people are presenting with is increasing – and there’s no sign of the pressures being released any time soon.

Kirsty added:

“We’re seeing more and more people in energy debt and if they are in debt, they are in a substantial amount of debt. We had a slight decrease in enquiries over July when people were on holiday, but not to the levels expected.

“We have not had a good summer, therefore householders haven’t been able to turn heating off as they would normally. We are mindful of this as it could mean increased enquiries this winter where householders have not been able to build up a credit as they normally would have.”

*name changed to protect identity

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