SIR – Late last month I was caught at the bottom of Lowesmoor in a vicious snow shower and a really bitter wind.

It crossed my mind that with the long and freezing winter we are running out of gas; and if the two liquid natural gas tankers that are at sea do not reach us in time we shall be in deep trouble. Gas prices have, in market terms, ‘spiked’ because of our prolonged cold spell.

And we are being warned of another round ofhuge energy price rises inthe summer, along withincreases in‘green energy taxes’, which will add £300 to averagehousehold bills by 2020.

An hour later I was walking from the High Street to Broad Street, through CrownGate, when I was caught by a draft of warm air from a shop with its doors wide open.

Surprised that any shop would leave its doors open in such bitter cold weather I subsequently counted 15 shops trading in freezing temperatures, with their doors wide open, and plumes of hot air pouring out of their premises.

In the CrownGate ‘Arcade’ the shops appear to have shutters rather than doors, so are permanently open to the cold walkway.

Other shops between the two bits of CrownGate were also trading with their doors wide open.

Why do we have upwards of 20,000 pensioners a year dying of the effects of hypothermia because they can’t afford to heat their homes properly, while commerce uses our energy with such prodigious contempt for a diminishing global resource?

If we are evolving energy conservation laws, why is commerce apparently left out of the equation?

Across Worcester there must be a great many more stores trading with their doors wide open; multiply that by the number of shops in our nation and it’s no wonder that we are short of gas and prices are rising!

Instead of David Cameron bleating about gas supplies he should have a word with his mates inLondon, andget them to shut their damn doors, and use their gas heating much more sensibly, or legislate.

Why should we customers have to pay extra on things we buy, so commerce can heat its shops to tropical levels, while leaving its doors wide open to streets and arcades that are barely above freezing?

Isn’t this just another example of our MPs’ crazy energy policies?

N TAYLOR

Worcester