Many thanks to VB reader General Synposis for this interesting contribution – Ed.
With the weather being like it has for what seems like months, one silver lining is supposed to be the £25-a-week cold weather payments the government makes to the elderly and people on certain benefits. The payments, not to be confused with the lump-sum winter fuel allowance, are triggered when the average temperature falls below freezing for seven consecutive days.
So what’s happened to them this winter in our part of the Island?
South, Central & West wasn’t cold?
The Directgov website has a very useful page where you enter your postcode and it tells you how many of these payments are supposed to have been made since November 1. But enter any poscode for PO38 (Ventnor, Niton, Whitwell, Godshill etc) and the message comes up: “The Met Office have notified the Department for Work and Pensions that no periods of very cold weather have occurred in the PO38 postcode area between 1 November 2010 and 22 December 2010 that would trigger a Cold Weather Payment. No Cold Weather Payments are due to be made.” The same thing happens for PO30 (Newport and surrounding areas), and PO39, 40 and 41 (the West Wight).
… but Sandown, Shanklin and the North was?
Now the really puzzling bit. Sandown and Shanklin’s postcode is PO36. Enter that on the website and this is what you get: “The Met Office have notified the Department for Work and Pensions that 3 periods of very cold weather have occurred in the PO36 postcode area between 1 November 2010 and 22 December 2010, triggering Cold Weather Payments. If you have qualified for Cold Weather Payments since 1 November 2010 and live in this postcode area, you are due to receive 3 Cold Weather Payments.”
The rest of the Island (PO31 to PO37) gets the same result. £75 a head so far then for the winners in this postcode lottery, not a fortune but worth having all the same.
So what’s the explanation?
Have the men from the ministry been out in your street with their thermometers? Have they found the Ventnor Riviera basking in its usual year-round balminess? We think not.
The fact is that we owe this particular financial misfortune to St Catherine’s Lighthouse. In the lighthouse grounds is a Met Office weather station, and it’s from this station’s readings that the DWP allocate, or in this case withhold, cold weather payments. The north and east of the Island are, for reasons not entirely clear, covered by the weather station on Thorney Island, just across from Portsmouth.
The case against using St Catherine’s
Now, before anyone (especially some DWP jobsworth looking for ways to save money) suggests that the whole Island be covered from the lighthouse, let’s consider whether this would be scientifically sound.
St Catherine’s is in a very exposed, south-facing, coastal position. It’s a very good place for a lighthouse but not such a clever place for measuring temperatures which are then used as typical for the neighbouring towns and villages.
Sea is warmer than land in Winter
It’s surrounded by the sea on three sides, and in cold winter weather the sea is always warmer than the land. That warmth influences the land temperature on a very narrow coastal strip, but as soon as you get even half a mile inland, that influence decreases.
Even in Niton village, winter temperatures are regularly a full degree Centigrade lower than those at St Catherine’s – easily enough to make the difference between seven days of frost and six. In Newport the difference can be several degrees.
In short, St Catherine’s is highly likely to be the warmest place on the entire island, with the possible exception of locations right on the beach on the south coast. Thorney Island would give a truer reflection for nearly all of us.
Time for a rethink?
The DWP and Met Office will, we’re sure, say they can’t have weather stations in every village. True enough. But shouldn’t they make sure that the ones they do use are fit for purpose?
