It looks and feels like an arty café in the pictureque streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, but it’s a “warm hub” set up by the Royal Shakespeare Company drama troupe to welcome people struggling to heat their homes because of sky-high energy prices.
“You just adapt,” said Freeman, 69, who was using the center as a warm, quiet place to work on a poem. “Little things, like putting less water in the kettle. I was brought up with ‘save the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.’ I always cook from scratch and eat what’s in season.A perfect storm of Russia's war in Ukraine, lingering pandemic disruption and economic aftershocks of Brexit is putting more people in Britain under financial strain.
Anne Bolger, a retired math teacher, happened across the warm hub during a walk one day and has come back every week since. She drops in to check emails, prep for math tutoring or do a jigsaw puzzle.The hub runs one afternoon a week in the smallest of the RSC's three theaters. On Tuesday, the space held a mixture of theater staff, actors on the way to rehearsals and visitors looking to get warm.
“The warmth is in the welcome as much as a warm building to come to,” said Nicola Salmon, who oversees the hub as the RSC's creative place-making manager. “There is always somebody here to chat to.” Like Britain’s food banks — now numbering an estimated 2,500 — warm hubs are a crisis measure showing signs of becoming permanent.
About 30 of the hubs will stay open this summer — with a view to becoming permanent — and the mobile hub will be on the road five days a week.
'A perfect storm of Russia's war in Ukraine'... Yeah... Let's blame stuff on Russia for war (said countries willingly placing sanctions on RU energy), COVID for supply chain, China for meddling... Perfect scapegoat for politicians and lack of infra Dev all over the world... 🤡
Wow you're actually trying to sell this as a positive. Ghouls.
I have a better solution. Cheap affordable energy and I even know where to find it. Any guesses?
JackMcGrath94 ill see you there
It’s a WEF conspiracy to control us by keeping us warm
US blew up Nordstream
That’s one way to lower emissions numbers….just make heating unaffordable
Freeze to death for Ukraine
Just what the elite want. Keep voting liberal