Whether – and what – this means for residents of Utrecht is still very unclear. “It is too early to say whether people will notice anything about this. We do our best not to. But in the end this is of course public money. We try to use it as economically as possible. If you have to pay significantly more for energy, we are of course not happy with that,” says alderman Lot van Hooijdonk. However, according to her, it is not necessarily the case that residents will notice this in taxes next year. “The municipality has a budget of one and a half billion euros per year, so it is not the case that residents will notice this because we now have a higher energy bill next year.”
Gazprom no longer heats municipal buildings in Utrecht, but the municipality has to dig deep into its pockets for a new contract
