Warmer homes, cooler climate

As the government struggles to meet its target on fuel poverty, reports Juliet Heller, two pioneering councils show just what can be achieved.

Over four million people in Britain are officially classed as ‘fuel poor’ – meaning they have to spend over 10% of their annual income in order to heat their home. 

That is a much higher proportion than in many other countries – including ones with much harsher winters, such as Finland and Sweden.

In a relatively prosperous nation like the UK, that’s a statistic which is crying out for action. The government’s committed itself to eradicating fuel poverty by 2010 – but despite the prospect of reductions in energy prices, there’s little sign they will achieve that.

The UK’s high level of fuel poverty is due largely to its ageing housing stock: many people live in homes that are draughty and poorly insulated, with old, inefficient heating systems. According to National Energy Action, around 75% of fuel-poor households occupy properties which are below minimum standards of energy efficiency. This not only means they have to consume excessive amounts of energy to keep warm – it also undermines efforts to reduce national carbon emissions, over a quarter of which are produced by housing.

The good news is that it’s possible to tackle both problems simultaneously, by a committed drive to improve the energy efficiency of vulnerable homes – in particular, by installing decent insulation.

A number of government-backed schemes, notably Warm Front, have been set up to do just that, principally through a system of grants targeted at poorer households. But these don’t always reach the most vulnerable, many of whom are elderly, and who struggle to make sense of the grants programme.

So leading local authorities are taking the initiative. In Leeds, where one-in-four households are fuel poor, the city council’s Fuelsavers team uses a straightforward method of friendly door-to-door visits and phone calls to identify households at greatest risk, and then take remedial action. In the last four years, it’s insulated over 37,000 homes and installed 20,000 super-efficient new boilers. These measures alone are saving over 88,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The council aims to make improvements right across the housing stock – both social and private. “We can’t just rely on the government to deal with this,” says Fuelsavers’ head Alan Jones.

Down in West Sussex, the much smaller Arun District Council has managed to insulate and double-glaze a remarkable 99% of its council housing stock, simply by putting energy efficiency at the heart of its 15-year rolling maintenance plan. Despite its relatively small budget, Arun keeps a close eye on fuel poverty, updating its strategy each year to meet changing circumstances, and fine-tuning schemes which provide insulation and heating system upgrades either free of charge or at discounted rates to vulnerable households. This ensures that, unlike some initiatives on this issue, they don’t get swamped by demand and end up unable to deliver.

Its accumulated expertise has led it to taking on the role of ‘fuel poverty co-ordinator’ for the whole of West Sussex. But it’s not all plain sailing. The meteoric increase in fuel prices may have stalled, but there is little sign of really sweeping reductions on the horizon. Then there’s the state of the economy more generally. As Roger Wood, deputy head of environmental health at Arun District Council explains: “We’re concerned that in a worsening economic climate, sustainable energy will be sidelined and councils will fail to meet their CO2 reduction targets.”

Others, like Kate Smith, a senior project officer at the Local Government Association, believe it could present an opportunity – since making homes energy-efficient can be a highly cost-effective way of simultaneously reducing poverty and carbon. As such, it should hold a strong appeal for a government committed to using public spending to defuse the recession.

Arun and Leeds are two local authorities with the expertise and management capacity to drive this work, but many others are still at the starting line. Strong leadership on the issue, and government support to replicate these kinds of initiatives, would go a long way to encouraging others. After all, in the long run it is sure to pay off, economically, socially – and environmentally.

Leeds City Council and Arun District Council were Local Authority Winners of the 2008 Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy. They are also among over 300 councils which have signed the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change, which aims to galvanise local authorities to adopt action plans on the issue.

The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy
is a Forum for the Future Partner

24 February 2009

Juliet Heller

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