Across the UK, a quiet but profound shift is taking place in community centres, churches, and libraries. They are becoming registered 'warm spaces' – vital havens for people struggling to heat their homes as energy bills continue to climb. This winter, the number of these community hubs has risen to almost 6,000, a stark indicator of the ongoing cost of living pressures facing millions.
A Second Home in Southwark
In the London borough of Southwark, the Walworth Living Room exemplifies this growing movement. Registered as one of 50 council-backed warm spaces in the borough, it is designed to feel like a home: with comfortable sofas, a communal table, and a consistently warm environment. For attendee Fatma Mustafa, 48, it has become a second home. On Universal Credit, she finds it hard to cover bills and easy to fall into debt. Visiting three days a week helps cut her costs on energy and groceries.
"I have a pay-as-you-go energy meter, which is increasingly just eating my money away," Mustafa explains. "And you can have food here, and then at least you’re full up for the day." Beyond the practical help, she says the people she has met have become "like my family," offering support through difficult times.
From Temporary Fix to Entrenched Reality
The rise of warm spaces mirrors the trajectory of food banks a decade ago, evolving from a temporary crisis response into a normalised part of the social fabric. The Warm Welcome Campaign, run by the Good Faith Foundation, reports the number of registered warm hubs has jumped from just over 4,000 in winter 2022-23 to nearly 6,000 for 2025-26.
This normalisation causes discomfort among volunteers and anti-poverty charities. Sabine Goodwin, director of the Independent Food Aid Network, calls warm spaces "sticking-plaster, stopgap measures" rather than strategic solutions tackling poverty's root causes. She laments their stealthy entrenchment in communities, arguing the responsibility should lie with government.
New research underscores the need. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's latest cost of living tracker found that 58% of households in the bottom 40% of incomes had cut down on heating to reduce bills this winter, while 51% had cut spending on food due to affordability.
More Than Just Heat: Building Community
At Walworth Living Room, run by the charity Pembroke House, the aim is to provide more than just a warm place to sit. On a recent visit, people shared homemade food, knitted together, took English classes, and chatted over tea. Executive director Mike Wilson is clear about the tension they navigate. "We’re not branding it as a 'warm bank'... because our aim long term is to build the type of neighbourhood in which food banks and warm banks are not needed," he states.
"The fact that we live in a society in which people can’t afford to put food on their table or heat their homes is a scandal. There have got to be systemic solutions," Wilson adds. The project strives to knit the neighbourhood together, welcoming those seeking companionship as well as those in financial need.
For Nazma Khanom, 52, the space has been a lifeline during a traumatic period following a cancer diagnosis. Struggling to keep up mortgage payments on Personal Independence Payment (PIP), she limits heating to an hour a day. Once a donor who cooked Christmas meals for her community, she found herself needing a food bank in 2023 and 2024. "Bills just keep going higher and higher," she says. At the Living Room, she found a new hobby in knitting, a quiet space to pray, and a sense of being appreciated.
David Barclay, campaign director of the Warm Welcome Campaign, echoes the sentiment that these spaces offer more than physical warmth. "Nobody wants to live in a country where people are forced to go to community spaces during the winter because otherwise they would be cold in their homes," he says. His vision is of "people choosing to go to community spaces" to find "belonging, purpose and connection."
As Mike Wilson concludes, while you cannot solve the national cost of living crisis at a neighbourhood scale, there is "huge amounts of neighbourhood innovation that could be relevant to the answers." For now, as Fatma Mustafa summarises, with a lack of sufficient government help, these community warm spaces are plugging a desperately needed gap for thousands across the UK.
