Beat half-term holiday rip-offs

Save £200 on your annual petrol bill

With clever use of websites and cards, you could save hundreds of pounds on your annual fuel bill. First find the cheapest petrol in your area, using petrolprices.com. This website will give you the rates on all forecourts within your area. Asda is consistently the cheapest. An Asda in Gateshead was charging 107.9p a litre, but a mile and a half down the road, the rates were 114.9p. With a 50-litre tank, you would save £3.50 at Asda.

You could make further savings by using an Asda credit card which offers an additional 2p off each litre, bringing your total saving to £4.50. Over the course of a year, you would save £234 assuming the difference between the stations remained the same and you filled up once a week.

Meanwhile, Tesco offers one Clubcard point for each £1 spent at a Tesco forecourt. These points are worth 1p so if you bought £50 worth of petrol you could save 50p.

Go to Manchester for £1

Virgin Trains is offering £1 singles between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly until the end of June. It is part of a trial of online printable tickets. You have to visit virgintrains.co.uk and go to the tickets@home section on the left-hand side. You then select which times you want to travel. Prices range from £1 to £7 each way so you could book a return over the half-term holidays for £2. In contrast, a standard open return costs £230 — allowing you to save £228. Tickets are only available for travel on weekdays because of maintenance work


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New boilers offer an escape from soaring fuel bills

For the domestic energy consumer facing ever higher bills, one of the most efficient ways to stay warm and keep the lights on has been a pipe dream so far, but record high fuel prices have focused minds on making it reality.

Large-scale combined heat and power plants are widely used across Europe to supply residential areas with warmth, hot water and electricity.

Now, a scaled-down version of the technology is becoming more attractive for use in individual households as gas and power costs soar in line with record oil prices.

Although micro combined heat and power (mCHP) mean homeowners have to invest new boilers, it allows them to sell any extra power they make back to the national grid and eventually make a profit.

At the same time, the increased efficiency cuts carbon emissions and could enable households to become entirely energy independent.

The technology has been commercially available in Britain since 2006 but is gaining popularity as oil prices drive up energy bills and public concern over global warming intensifies.

"It's part of a whole suite of solutions, which we should be developing," said Robin Oakley of environmental group Greenpeace.

"The underlying principle of getting more energy out of the same fuel is a very good one ... Realistically, at the domestic level people make a decision about a boiler when the old one breaks, but high prices are focusing everyone's minds."

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PM's new homes 'not green enough'

Gordon Brown's plan to build 3 million homes by 2020 is coming under renewed criticism from a powerful group of MPs just days after Caroline Flint, the housing minister, inadvertently let slip that prices are to fall by 10 per cent.

The environmental audit committee is accumulating evidence to assess the impact of 3 million new homes. Tim Yeo, its chairman, is concerned that new homes are not near transport hubs and have few employment opportunities, so leading to increased commuting. In addition, too few new homes, he argues, are built with sustainable materials, many proposed settlements are located in flood plains, and there are fears about inferior quality. Yeo also wants more money diverted into energy efficiency. 'We are years behind other European countries,' he said.

The committee has already taken one week's evidence, with more sessions scheduled this week. The report will be published in July.

Criticism of Brown's housing plans, a central plank of his premiership, will be unwelcome for the Prime Minister whose time as Chancellor coincided with a housing boom caused in part by a lack of newly built homes. The number of new homes built this year is likely to be about 150,000 - 50,000 fewer than last year.

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scheming power firms rig prices to con families out of £400 every year

Households are being overcharged by more than £400 a year for gas and electricity because power companies are fixing prices, it is claimed.

The official consumer body Energywatch says the power supply industry in Britain and Europe is rigged against consumers.

It also accuses the Government of being docile and complacent while millions struggle to pay their bills.

Householders have already been hit with a 15 per cent increase this year, and the industry is suggesting another 25 per cent rise.

The giant power suppliers claim they are simply passing on increases in the wholesale cost of gas, which has been driven up by a record leap in the price of oil to more than 120 dollars a barrel.

However, Energywatch says this link between the gas price and oil is unjustified, artificial and outdated. The watchdog says the link amounts to a form of price-fixing.

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