'I'm not prepared to wait while people are possibly freezing to death': Councillors discuss grants for pensioners

Oswestry’s town council will make £5,000 available to the Oswestry & Borders Foodbank as part of a motion to help pensioners with fuel costs this winter following a vote on October 10, in response to the UK Government’s decision to means test the Winter Fuel Payment.

At the meeting of Oswestry Town Council, Councillor John Price said he was “not prepared to discuss due diligence” while pensioners could be “freezing to death” – with proposer Councillor Duncan Kerr saying that the money could be “life or death” for pensioners in Oswestry as he introduced the plan.

“I think it’s fantastic that we’ve got such a forward-looking food bank in the town and they’ve got the compassion, commitment and dedication to make this happen,” said Councillor Kerr.

“The Oswestry food bank are experts in determining eligibility and I don’t think we need to worry ourselves about that – they will know who should have this money, they can assess their eligibility in the normal way that they do for other schemes.

“That will [affect] hundreds if not thousands of people, many those people are already struggling to heat their homes even with the winter fuel payment. This is a serious issue which will have dramatic consequences for people that we represent in our town.”

Councillor James Owen said that while he agreed with the principle of the motion, providing direct assistance before receiving a formal application was a “bad precedent to set,” and he suggested deferring the move until the town council had seen more detailed plans for how the scheme would operate.

“The work done by the food bank is undoubtedly excellent… [but] we need to go through the normal processes before handing money to a third party group,” he added.

But in a passionate response Councillor John Price said the need was too urgent to delay until the next meeting, and suggested setting up a discussion with the food bank to discuss plans instead.

“I’m not here to listen to how we perform due diligence when somebody is possibly freezing to death,” he said.

“I was elected to represent people in Oswestry and I don’t think we’ll be sleeping at night by listening to a statement that we have to do due diligence prior to helping a person who’s cold, tired, ill, suffering from social isolation,” he said.

“I ask Councillor Kerr to set up a meeting with the food bank on how they’ll do the provision and selection process for people who will be applying, if that can be done sooner rather than later. I’m not prepared to wait for the next meeting, the urgency is there.”

As part of the motion, the town council will also write to the chancellor Rachel Reeves expressing its opposition to the Winter Fuel Allowance changes.