Tenants of Bolton’s biggest housing association are angry at the increase of cost in communal outside lights which they say is leaving them out of pocket.
Suheil Tayeb and the rest of the residents at Breckles Place in Bolton are currently paying £1.78 for the communal lights outside their homes.
But Bolton at Home is is set to increase to £8, which they say will leave them severely out of pocket and struggling to run their homes.
Suheil said: “We have fridges running in the house and they run 24/7 and we do not pay that high in electricity charges.
"This looks way too inflated for three streetlights operating from sundown to sunrise for a couple of hours, the lights are also eco-saving lights which should save money, but their calculations seem to be lighting up the whole street?
“We’d like to even shut down the lights that we do not use or put-up motion sensors on them to save costs.
“This is so stressful to all of us, I am worried about being able to pay anything else after this.”
The lights are not the only costs have been hit with as heating has also increased.
Suheil said: “If they go ahead and implement these charges, we will be struggling to feed our families.
“We have kids and there are old, retired residents who have no income and their government support has not been raised and neither have our wages been increased while some of us employed are on national minimum wages.
“How can we afford this?
“We will be pushed to the wall, some of us will go bankrupt or must choose between them all probably be left homeless if they decide to kick us out.”
“I don’t understand how they can increase it like this when they must know we can’t afford that.”
The residents are all facing the same increases and are said to be concerned about their bills.
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While Suheil and his neighbours understand some costs must increase they feel the amount is too high and are requesting Bolton At Home revise the costs.
A spokesman for Bolton At Home said: "We’re doing everything we can to help keep energy cost rises to a minimum for customers.
"We don’t make any profit from these charges and we only ever look to cover the utility costs involved in providing communal heating and lighting.
"It’s just not possible for us to continue to absorb the increase in supply costs without passing on an increase to customers.
"We always urge customers with money worries to contact us for individual support.”
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