{"id":514251,"date":"2026-04-05T13:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/514251\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T13:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:22:07","slug":"how-rural-dwellers-cope-with-heating-oil-and-diesel-price-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/514251\/","title":{"rendered":"How rural dwellers cope with heating oil and diesel price rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in deepest darkest Essex, the onset of spring has been slow. March felt chillier<\/a> than normal, and while April promises balmier days, we expect more bracing nights.<\/p>\n

Which means only one thing: The heating should still be on. And in normal times it would be. We live in a rural farmhouse close to the Suffolk border and normally have our thermostat fixed at 17 degrees celsius. That is a temperature my fridge magnet provided by Braintree council says is \u201ccomfortable for most people\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this year, we\u2019ve had to turn the heating off much earlier than expected since the price of heating oil doubled<\/a>. Unfortunately, like an estimated 1.7 million other UK households who live in (typically rural) properties not on mains gas, we rely on oil to heat our home. Our house is not comfortable; it\u2019s downright freezing.<\/p>\n

Since the war in Iran<\/a> sent oil prices soaring, the cost of refilling your heating oil tank has more than doubled \u2013 I should know, as we had ours filled up this week. My neighbours are in the same leaky boat with kerosene \u2013 which is more suited to outdoor tanks \u2013 typically now costing \u00a31.25 to \u00a31.40 a litre. Ouch.<\/p>\n

Before Donald Trump waded in to deal with the IRGC<\/a>, prices were less than half that, at around 60p a litre. Prior to the conflict, we spent around \u00a34,000 a year on oil \u2013 you can only imagine what we might pay this year. (In early March, with the price of crude oil passing $100 a barrel<\/a> for the first time in four years, Trump said rising fuel costs were \u201ca very small price to pay\u201d for world peace.)<\/p>\n

Although some people have been able to get their heating oil at a fixed price per litre, some have not, with oil companies legitimately telling customers they cannot give prices until they themselves have bought the oil. Many rural folk are being as shrewd as they can, turning off the heating and using their log burner<\/a> instead, as wood hasn\u2019t doubled in price \u2013 yet.<\/p>\n

Hurting at home and on the road<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a double whammy for us country dwellers, however, as we depend on our cars to get around, and so have also been disproportionately affected by the rise in diesel prices. There is an Essex Dart bus near us which can be booked the day before and will take you to the nearest market town of Sudbury, but the nearest bus into Colchester is about an hour\u2019s walk away (I know because I have made my eldest walk it several times when I was too busy to drive him!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here in deepest darkest Essex, the onset of spring has been slow. March felt chillier than normal, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,13222,1294,156576,2864,655,12589,5438,58919,56,1893,54,55,157732],"class_list":{"0":"post-514251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-countryside","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-energy-crisis","12":"tag-family","13":"tag-lifestyle","14":"tag-oil-price","15":"tag-standard","16":"tag-top-story","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-uk-economy","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom","21":"tag-us-content"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514251","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=514251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}