Tuesday 27 November 2007

Keeping Warm This Winter

Further to my post on 15 November 'A Cold Winter', I made up my mind not just to complain about the issue, but to try and do something about it. So I decided to try and raise awareness, in the constituency I'm a candidate for and online, about the help available.

I've launched a local campaign aimed at helping pensioners to keep warm this winter.

As a candidate, there are limited opportunities to actually help people. You can campaign on issues, but it is difficult to affect real change for people, unless you then become their elected representative. However, by raising awareness of steps that people can take to keep warm this winter, if just a handful of people get extra help because of my campaign, then it is well worth it.

More information can be found on my campaign website: www.juliehepburnsnp.com

With the Westminster Government sitting on a pot £4.5 billion of unclaimed benefits for older people, we should be doing all we can to make sure pensioners claim the money they are entitled to. That £4.5 billion would go a long way to helping people stay warm this winter.

I've put together a short list of steps (with telephone numbers and web links) that pensioners can take if they are worried about keeping warm this winter. There is a lot of information out there, but it's not all easily accessible in one place. But it is now on my website, so if you are interested in raising awareness about the help available, please check it out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well done Jules, great idea. And yes, we should all be doing as much as we can to give practical help rather than simply theorising all the time.