{"id":327891,"date":"2025-12-21T09:07:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327891\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:07:05","slug":"bills-keep-going-higher-community-warm-spaces-on-the-rise-in-the-uk-uk-cost-of-living-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327891\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Bills keep going higher\u2019: community \u2018warm spaces\u2019 on the rise in the UK | UK cost of living crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Fatma Mustafa began attending Walworth Living Room, a community project in south London<\/a>, a few years ago, she began to feel like it was her second home. The registered \u201cwarm space\u201d is designed to feel like a living room: comfy sofas, a communal table, activities and food in a warm environment.<\/p>\n

Mustafa, 48, says that on universal credit (UC) it is hard to cover bills and easy to fall into debt. Attending three days a week, she says, cuts costs on energy and groceries.<\/p>\n

She has a pay-as-you-go energy meter, which is increasingly \u201cjust eating my money away\u201d, she says. And \u201cyou can have food here, and then at least you\u2019re full up for the day\u201d.<\/p>\n

But more than cost of living help, Mustafa says, the people she has met here have become \u201clike my family\u201d and helped her through painful times. \u201cThey\u2019ve been there for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI just love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walworth Living Room is a registered \u201cwarm space\u201d with the local authority, one of 50 this winter in the London borough of Southwark. The average annual bill for typical gas and electricity consumption under the energy price cap is now \u00a31,755, 44% higher<\/a> than winter 2021-22.<\/p>\n

Fatma Mustafa. The people at Walworth Living Room have become \u2018like my family\u2019, she says. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Over that time, a trend has emerged that has gone largely unnoticed: since 2022 community \u201cwarm banks\u201d or \u201cwarm spaces\u201d have sprung up right across the UK. The Warm Welcome Campaign, an initiative from the Good Faith Foundation charity, says it has risen from just over 4,000 registered warm hubs in winter 2022-23 to almost 6,000 in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

But similar to the rise of food banks 10 years ago<\/a>, there is discomfort among volunteers and anti-poverty charities about warm spaces becoming another entrenched part of the UK landscape that should be the government\u2019s responsibility. Some call warm spaces a new austerity innovation<\/a> that joins other kinds of charity \u201cbanks\u201d \u2013 food banks, warm banks, baby banks, multibanks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch like food banks, warm spaces emerged as temporary responses to the energy crisis and have become normalised in local communities by stealth,\u201d says Sabine Goodwin, the director of the Independent Food Aid Network, a national network of food banks.<\/p>\n

These types of charities have a positive impact but are \u201csticking-plaster, stopgap measures,\u201d she says, rather than strategic interventions that tackle poverty\u2019s root causes.<\/p>\n

People share food and pull Christmas crackers at Walworth Living Room. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Walworth Living Room is one warm space trying to operate differently. When the Guardian visited on Thursday, people were sharing homemade food, knitting together, taking an English class, chatting and drinking tea \u2013 some there for cost of living reasons, some not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not branding it as a \u2018warm bank\u2019, in the same way we wouldn\u2019t brand it as a \u2018food bank\u2019, because our aim long term is to build the type of neighbourhood in which food banks and warm banks are not needed,\u201d says Mike Wilson, the executive director of Pembroke House, the charity that runs Walworth Living Room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we live in a society in which people can\u2019t afford to put food on their table or heat their homes is a scandal. There have got to be systemic solutions,\u201d Wilson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s a tension: how do you meet the immediate need, whilst building the power to come up with the solutions?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dot McEvoy, 72, at Walworth Living Room. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation published its cost of living tracker for winter 2025-26<\/a> this week, which looks at UK households with incomes in the bottom 40%. It found 58% of these households had cut down on heating to reduce bills, and 51% cut spending on food due to affordability.<\/p>\n

Walworth Living Room has been there for Nazma Khanom, 52, during a traumatic period. She says that after being diagnosed with cancer in 2023, for which she has undergone a range of surgeries and treatments, finances have been tight.<\/p>\n

She says keeping up mortgage payments on personal independence payment (Pip) has been a struggle, and she turns on the heating for an hour a day.<\/p>\n

\u2018I always look forward to a Thursday to come here and get out the house,\u2019 says Nazma Khanom. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Before her diagnosis, working at a nearby school, Khanom says that each Christmas she would prepare rice and chicken for everyone: families, children, elderly people and homeless people. But after losing her job, Khanom says she needed to use a food bank in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so bad,\u201d she says. \u201cNow I feel like I\u2019m the person who needs support, whereas before I was giving the support \u2026 bills just keep going higher and higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cI always look forward to a Thursday to come here and get out the house \u2026 because of the people here. I\u2019ve started a new hobby \u2013 they gave me a needle and wool, and it took my mind off my illness.\u201d They also made a space where Khanom can pray, and she feels appreciated and welcomed.<\/p>\n

Not everyone at Walworth Living Room needs support with the cost of living. Margaret Regan, 81, says she attends for companionship. \u201cI\u2019m on my own now,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have got family around, but the danger is, you become very insular and everything closes down. So when I come here, I\u2019ve met all these people \u2013 and of all different ages.\u201d The charity\u2019s wider aim is to help knit the neighbourhood together in this way.<\/p>\n

Regan says she gets a good pension, so help with the cost of living is not her primary motivation, but that there\u2019s no stigma whatever people\u2019s needs. \u201cI\u2019m damn sure there are people that come here, and that is probably all they\u2019re gonna eat for the rest of the day \u2013 but they\u2019re not made to feel as if they\u2019re imposing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazma Khanom, Margaret Regan and Dot McEvoy at Walworth Living Room, Southwark. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Regan was wearing Christmas-themed earrings. Usually she comes to crochet, but on her last visit before the holidays, \u201cI thought, I\u2019m just gonna have a chat today!\u201d<\/p>\n

David Barclay, the campaign director of the Warm Welcome Campaign, says warm spaces cannot solve poverty\u2019s systemic causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody wants to live in a country where people are forced to go to community spaces during the winter because otherwise they would be cold in their homes,\u201d Barclay says. Instead, his vision is of \u201cpeople choosing to go to community spaces\u201d to find \u201cbelonging, purpose and connection\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a really lovely quote from someone running a warm space I heard recently,\u201d Barclay says. \u201c\u2018There\u2019s more to warming someone up than just heating.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson hopes community spaces like it can help inform the national approach to tackling poverty \u2013 and advocate for effective policy interventions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t solve the cost of living crisis at a neighbourhood scale,\u201d he says, \u201cbut there are huge amounts of neighbourhood innovation that could be relevant to the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, this winter, \u201cwarm spaces\u201d will continue plugging a much-needed gap. \u201cIt feels like the government isn\u2019t really helping people,\u201d Mustafa says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn UC they expect you to pay all your bills but you can end up with bailiffs at your door. It\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Fatma Mustafa began attending Walworth Living Room, a community project in south London, a few years ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-327891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}