Government Winter Weather Alerts

[Coast]

The government have announced that they are to issue Winter weather alerts from the Met Office aimed at helping vulnerable people during cold snaps.

http://mediacentre.d...ady-for-winter/

Under the new arrangements, the Met will issue alerts depending on the severity of the conditions. In total, there will be four alerts, each of which will ask local agencies, including NHS trusts and councils, to carry out certain duties. For example, at level three, which would have been reached last winter, health and social care staff should consider daily visits to the most vulnerable. In previous years it has been up to local areas to decide how to react to cold snaps.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-15526477

They have also stated that they are to release extra funding to help people to keep their houses warm, with an extra 27,000 people dying during the Winter months but is it enough?

The Department of Health has pledged an extra £10m for this initiative - on top of the £110m. However, even with the extra money, the fund has still been cut compared to previous years.A new fund, worth £20m, is also being set up to encourage councils and charities to come up with new ways of helping the most vulnerable. The cold weather plan has been drawn up in partnership with the Met Office and Health Protection Agency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-15526477

The four levels are:

• Level 1 winter preparedness – long term planning
  
• Level 2 severe winter weather is forecast – 60 per cent risk of extreme cold lasting more than 48 hours
  
• Level 3 response to severe winter weather – we are experiencing severe weather which is expected to have an impact on peoples health and health services
  
• Level 4 major incident – exceptional widespread winter weather causing disruptions
  

What would you do with the limited resources to help out the vulnerable? Is it enough to give people extra cash to insulate their homes or do we need to tackle the problem of increasing fuel bills? Do you agree with the four levels of severity that the Met Office will use to trigger action?

[Ladyofthestorm]

All the four levels of warning will do is probably give the energy companies incentive to raise prices at crutial times. Its funny up here the old people are better prepared for winter... in fact they instinctively know when bad weather is coming long before the GFS does...lol.

If there is one thing the givernment could do to stop the escalation of fuel costs and that would be to make sure that EVERY home in the uk has the very highest standard of insulation put in.People freeze to death not because of no central heating but because there houses are not up to a minimum standard. Its time to change that. The energy companies would have no choice but to lower price as demand would fall.

(but they aint going to do that, as it brings in revenue).

Shower of thieving B@@@@@@@@s

[Jane Louise]

I get a winter payment of £10 from the government every year for the whole of winter. How on earth do they expect that amount to cover my heating! that's £2.50 a month Lol. This year I have central heating instead of storage heaters so I'm hoping it'll be a lot cheaper!

[Lynxus]

I get a winter payment of £10 from the government every year for the whole of winter. How on earth do they expect that amount to cover my heating! that's £2.50 a month Lol. This year I have central heating instead of storage heaters so I'm hoping it'll be a lot cheaper!

Just make sure that once the house needs to be heated , You keep the heating on.. ( not full blast ) but at 22c ish..

Once the bricks warm up etc it becomes cheaper as you dont have to "re heat" the house every x amount of hours..

[Aaron]

I have central heating but don't pay monthly bills but instead have a meter and it saves money I can assure you!

[Wynn D Woo]

Just make sure that once the house needs to be heated , You keep the heating on.. ( not full blast ) but at 22c ish..

Once the bricks warm up etc it becomes cheaper as you dont have to "re heat" the house every x amount of hours..

22c is way too uncomfortable, i cant see why anyone needs to heat a house higher than 17/18c at most. Im glad i dont have your heating bills if thats the temperature you keep the heating at :o

Im sure the money being spent on this could be utilised in a better way, but then again that wont help line the pockets in the energy companies.

[Coast]

Interesting reading from the National Grid on the up coming Winter, contained in their Winter Outlook Report - 2011/12 and available as a .pdf download here:

http://www.nationalg...port_201112.pdf

No big revelations about snow though!

[syed2878]

I agree having a meeter is a bit cheeper i dont pay quatterly bill ither.