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In a church hall in one of South West London’s most affluent neighbourhoods, Peter Ward-Miller talks about his fuel bill.

He hasn’t used any hot water at his council home for two years. He washes in cold water, keeps the heating switched off and uses only the bare minimum of electricity.

He has a tiny hotel room kettle, and doesn’t turn the lights on.

“I’m always cold,” says the 53-year-old former garage worker. “Sometimes my hands and feet are so painful.

“I’m getting older and I’m not the biggest bloke you’ll meet.”

His neighbour lent him a fan heater for dire emergencies, but he doesn’t touch his gas at all. He tops the ­electricity up when he can. And when he can’t, he lives in darkness.

The church hall is operating as a fuelbank. So, when Peter leaves the church an hour later, he does so with a voucher for £49 which he can use to top up his gas card or electricity meter.

(Image: Phil Harris/Daily Mirror)

This is a pilot project run in ­partnership between charities including the Trussell Trust and funded by the energy giant npower.

It is a radical new idea to tackle the “heat or eat” dilemma.

Food banks have gone from being virtually unknown two years ago to giving out more than a million parcels last year.

But fuel and food poverty go hand in hand. Research by Citizens Advice suggests one in six homes using energy meters disconnect supplies every year to save money.

This means some 1.6 million people could be going without gas and electricity.

Meanwhile, the cold weather death toll for the winter just ended is expected to top 40,000 – the highest number for 15 years.

The npower scheme has three pilot areas – Durham, Gloucester, and here in Kingston upon Thames.

I am at the United Reformed Church, a stone’s throw from a busy precinct lined with ­expensive shops.

Local church leader Paul ­Pickhaver explains that while the town’s residents are in the top 2% for earnings in the country, there are deep pockets of deprivation.

(Image: Phil Harris/Daily Mirror)

One couple with a young son say they only use an open fire in their council home.

“Friends drop off old bits of wood for us,” says the woman, who asks not to be named. “We haven’t had the heating on since my husband lost his job.”

Her husband, 56, a former warehouse-man, had worked since he was 16, but the company recently relocated.

He says: “The Government has no idea what it’s like to live on benefits. Nor had I until this happened to me.”

Meanwhile, the housing crisis in ­Kingston is acute.

Last week, the front page of the local newspaper carried a property advert – “Single bed in shared kitchen.”

The price of that bed stuck between cupboards and the cooker was £400 a week.

“The housing benefit limit in Kingston is £350 a month,” says Paul, a former civil servant. “So, someone living there would have to find £50 from money for food or fuel.”

The couple who posted the advert have since claimed it was a mistake.

Peter has lived in the family home – a council property – since he was two years old. He has had a ­difficult life.

(Image: Phil Harris/Daily Mirror)

His mum suffered a brain injury, and his sister had a learning disability. His dad was the carer while he was alive, then Peter until his mum and sister died.

Now he is being charged Bedroom Tax on rooms they no longer occupy. But even if there were a one-bedroom place to move to, he could not bear to leave.

“Mum and Dad’s ashes are scattered in the back garden,” he says.

Peter was receiving disability benefits for a painful back problem and the lung condition COPD, but then ATOS found him fit for work so his benefits were cut at the same time as the Bedroom Tax came in.

So, here he is at the fuelbank. In the past, the Trussell Trust and other foodbanks have tried cold food parcels, and kettle boxes – where meals can be made with just boiling water.

Fuel vouchers – which are activated using a 10 digit code – mean people can eat hot food as well as keep warm.

The fuelbank undoubtedly has the power to change the lives of people in crisis.

(Image: Phil Harris/Daily Mirror)

But it is also window-dressing for an industry raking in huge profits while it continues to charge extortionate prices – and ­disproportionately more to the poorest families through pre-payment meters.

The parallel is the supermarkets which collect for food banks while giving their staff short hours, wasting millions of tonnes of edible food and doing little to fix our broken food system.

The initiative started before May 7, when it was still possible a Labour government would come in and cap prices as one of its key pledges.

Changes to welfare reform like ending the Bedroom Tax would also have meant Peter wouldn’t have needed charity to survive.

Now, it looks as if fuel banks may become as vitally necessary as food banks.

But as Peter leaves with his voucher and a box of food, he looks worried.

“I don’t want to get used to hot water and heating again,” he says, quietly.

“It took me a long time to get used to not having it, and £49 won’t last me so long.”