The Deputy Mayor of St. Brendan’s is concerned about how residents are going to heat their homes this winter as their oil supplier will no longer make the trek.

Earlier this week – North Atlantic made the decision to cease service to several rural communities including St. Brendan’s, which is accessible only by ferry.

Jamie Alyward says roughly 40 homes will be affected by the move, which, according to the P-C opposition, will leave the community without a secondary provider.

Alyward told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly that his municipality doesn’t qualify for provincial incentives to help convert to another source of heat.

“We don’t qualify under the government conversion from oil to electric – we don’t qualify for that program as we are a domestic diesel power by NL Hydro. Furthermore, we have a tier system for the rate of charge under domestic diesel where our power usage increases with the power usage to our rate. So we start off with a rate of 13.25 cents per kilowatt hour – once we get to 100 kilowatt hours, we jump to 19.95 cents per kilowatt hour.”