As many Tunstead & Sco-Ruston residents know, the villages’ Community Oil Purchase Scheme (COPS) provides a  valuable service to achieve a saving in domestic fuel costs. Apart from the saving COPS can achieve through bulk ordering, COPS volunteers ring round the fuel companies to secure the most favourable rate from various suppliers thereby saving individual households time and trouble.

Recently, it has come to our attention that the Norfolk Rural Commmunity Council (‘Norfolk RCC’) offers a similar service but on a much larger scale, covering the whole of Norfolk.

The Norfolk RCC Scheme has a number of advantages over a local scheme. Apart from increased bulk buying power (I was advised the combined Oil order for May 2013 is some 80,000 litres) the Norfolk RCC Scheme is near guaranteed to place an order every month by sheer volume of people participating. So, unlike our current scheme you can be sure to secure the best possible price each month without the need for relying on other Tunstead & Sco-Ruston residents also participating.

At present we are working on ensuring everything in place so that Tunstead & Sco-Rsuton residents can place an order in June 2013. This is typically the time of the year that domestic oil prices are at their lowest during the year. And hopefully we can also benefit from the bulk buying power of Norfolk RCC.

Further information on the Scheme is available under the Tunstead Oil Group Scheme