Cost of living crisis support

Fuel poverty affects millions of people each year, with those on lower incomes the hardest hit. This winter, an increasing number of households will be struggling to pay their energy bills. We know that communities can respond to crises in unique and innovative ways and will be thinking about how to manage rising energy bills.

If you’d like to help alleviate some of the hardship that will be felt this winter by the recent energy price rises, our partner Centre for Sustainable Energy can support you to support your community by offering:

• resources to share with residents on how they can save money on their bills,
• tools to help you find the best ways to improve the energy efficiency of community buildings,
• advice for how to set up an energy champions network in your community.

Please get in touch with us at support@localtrust.org.uk to let us know if you’d like support and advice on managing rising energy bills.

The cost of owning and running a community asset, like a community centre, is rising in line with inflation and energy bills.

If this is something concerning your partnership, we can offer support via both our climate partners CSE (above), and/ or our assets partners, who can support you to:

• think in detail about the short and medium-term cost implications of your asset and how to mitigate risks,
• implement a community enterprise model – a model which successfully supported community organisations to become more resilient and financially secure throughout the covid crisis.

Please get in touch with us at support@localtrust.org.uk to let us know if you’d like support with rising costs associated with your community building.

An increasing number of community organisations are planning ‘warm banks’ this winter – places where people who cannot afford heating this winter can shelter and which provide emergency food and social gatherings to beat isolation.

If your partnership owns a community building, you may be thinking about using it to set up a warm bank. Alternatively, for partnerships who don’t own a space, there may be an opportunity to work with your local network to set up a warm bank and promote awareness of the space to residents in your area.

Our community engagement partner, WSA Community Consultants, can help you to:

• organise the use of a community space to host food and heating initiatives,
• and help you maximise your outreach, so that more of your community are aware of where they can get help.

Please get in touch with us at support@localtrust.org.uk to let us know if you’d like support with setting up a warm bank.

Understandably, your Big Local plans and activities may need to be rapidly changed in response to the cost of living crisis . Clear communications will be key for partnerships hoping to promote new projects like warm banks or needing to explain why plans have changed to key stakeholders.

Our communications partners can help partnerships thinking about how to communicate at this time to:

• promote initiatives that are designed to support their community with the cost of living crisis e.g. social media posts/ videos to promote warm banks or advice sessions,
• create communications that can be seen by harder to reach groups that are digitally excluded e.g. elderly residents
• communicate with stakeholders if their Big Local plan needs to be changed in response to the crisis.

Our communications partners have also launched a new peer network, where Big Local areas can take a breath and share approaches and issues with your peers, so you won’t feel alone with tackling these big challenges.

Please get in touch with us at support@localtrust.org.uk to let us know if you’d like support with your communications.