IT HAS been reported that the county council estimates how many in our county faced “the stark choice of whether ‘to heat or eat’.”

It says there are such 28,000 households, 17,000 of which are ‘vulnerable’ (containing children, the elderly and/or someone with a long-term illness or disability). Excellent work is being done by the Community Emergency Foodbank which received £2,000 towards providing food to a ‘lucky few’ of the thousands of needy people who are going without food to pay their fuel bills.

The £2,000 came from £153,000 given by the Department of Health to the county to help vulnerable residents keep warm and well this winter.

These figures mean that there are over 60,000 people in our rich county, many of them elderly, children or ill, who cannot afford to eat and keep warm.

The Government has contributed just £2 or £3 per person to help them over the long cold months.

This is topped up by decent people volunteering their time and money – but many needy people go without.

However, what has to be done so that nobody need suffer.

In the county council the Greens proposed free home insulation in the wards with most low-income people as an efficient way to end most fuel poverty.

This was rejected and the status quo remains. Is it true that most of us agree that this is acceptable?

LARRY SANDERS (retiring Cllr), Green Party, Oxfordshire County Council