RESIDENTS across south Essex have reacted with fury after British Gas announced a 12.5 per cent increase to their electricity tariffs from September.

The increase is expected to affect up to 3.1 million customers countrywide.

British Gas said it held off from the price rise a for “up to six months longer than some of our competitors”.

Des Oxland from Age Concern, in Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, said: “I used to be a befriender who visits people in their homes and I still do visit people. Some live in a terrible state and this will be terrible news for them.

“When you see some of the conditions people live in it’s awful, which is why we are always trying to raise funds to help people.

“Such a big rise is dreadful and will make the elderly very anxious. There will be more people having to choose between eating and keeping warm.

“Their systems mean they find it harder to keep warm, so this will affect them. It’s absolutely awful to have such a large increase.”

Rochford District Council representative, John Mason, 66 said: “Are wholesale prices falling though? Summer holiday time is the best time to bury unwelcome news of an increase which will benefit the supplier when winter usage kicks in. We will all be wondering when we get the first new bill when this happened.”

Elizabeth Thacker, 41, from Hogarth Drive, Shoebury, said: “We got ourselves and electric car a few months ago as our fuel bill for our diesel care was out of this world. This is not what we wanted to hear.”

The increase comes as British Gas owners Centrica posted results revealing they had lost 377,000 UK customer accounts in the first half of the year.

Chief executive of Centrica, Iain Conn, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that electricity was facing “significant cost pressure” on transmission and distribution, as well as costs associated with Government policy.

He said: “The net effect of both of these is an increase of about £62 on the average bill, and that is the main driver of the increase. Combined with the fact that our electricity prices at British Gas have been some of the cheapest in the market, and we’re now selling our electricity at a loss, which is clearly not sustainable.”

A question that is yet to be answered is why all of the Big Six energy companies have put prices up even though wholesale prices have come down.