Cost of living: Park home residents 'falling between the cracks'

South West park home residents feel they are "falling between the cracks" amid delays to energy bill rebates via the Energy Bill Support Scheme.

Some park home owners said there were delays because they did not deal directly with energy companies.

The government had said households would begin receiving Energy Bill Support Scheme payments in October.

The BBC has contacted the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for comment.

Park home resident David Vincent, who is also the chairman of the Tamar Park Residents' Association, said park home owners were "falling between the cracks".

He said: "With park homes like this, the majority of people here are retired, they're on pensions, and they're fully vulnerable to price hikes like this.

"We seem to be being ignored, being some of the little people I guess, that don't tend to figure too much."

Mr Vincent said his message to the government was to ask for "some kind of steer and some kind of timeframe for this to come out."

He added: "There's various different ways it possibly can be done.

"I think you'll find we all pay council tax, therefore we can be identified through that source if no other reason, so there must be a logical way they can actually get through to the park home owners, or the residential park home owners anyway, to make this possible, to actually get this out to us, before we run out of winter."

Tamar Park resident Dave Mounty said he could see why there had been delays to the payments, but said he would like the money "quick".

He said: "Well, they've got to look at every park home site in the country, but they're not all the same.

"There's one just down the road from us now, they are direct customers of an electric company, they don't go through the site office, we do."

Sonia McColl, founder of the Park Home Owners justice campaign, told BBC Radio Cornwall many park home residents felt like "the forgotten people".

She said: "We're two months into it now and there are residents out there who are paying with prepaid meters, who are needing this money now, other people have got it, but they haven't, and they're suffering because of it."

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