62,000 homes across Suffolk ineligible for rebate to help with heating bills

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that homes in council tax bands A to D that were lived in as primary residences would be receiving the £150 rebate as part of his plan to help families manage with spiralling energy bills. Nationally this is expected to be around four in every five homes.

In Suffolk 62,706 homes are not eligible for this rebate. This is either because they are in a higher tax band, classed as a second home or empty.

The greatest number of ineligible homes are in East Suffolk, where 20,552 out of 113,674 homes are not eligible for the rebate. Of these 4,113 homes are classed as second homes, 18,422 are in a council tax band above D, and 1,920 are empty.

This equates to a rate of 3.4%. This is the 19th highest rate out of 308 local authorities in England.

In Ipswich, 92.3% of the 60,135 homes will be eligible for the rebate.

Ofgem's energy price cap is to rise by 54% because of soaring wholesale gas prices from April 1. (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

This is the 24th highest rate of eligibility of the 308 local authority districts in England, analysis carried out for this newspaper has found.

In total 6,065 of the ineligible homes in Suffolk are classed as second homes and 5,523 are classed as empty, while the rest are ineligible due to their council tax band.

However, some of these homes may be eligible for help from a £150million discretionary fund.

The rebates were announced as part of a package of support after Ofgem announced its price cap on energy bills would be increasing by 54% from April 1.

It has been estimated that the increases will mean the cost of heating an average home will have doubled in 18 months, while numbers in fuel poverty will soar from four million to 6.5 million households across Great Britain in six months.