Social Landlords Fear For Tenants Amid Energy Price Surges

Social housing providers and sector bodies have urged the government to reconsider the cuts to Universal Credit and step up support to tenants who could face the stark choice between heating their homes or eating, due to soaring energy prices. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng warned that some households face a “very difficult winter”. But prime minister Boris Johnson played down the issue, saying that the energy price surges were a “short-term” issue and that people should not worry about putting food on the table. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/social-landlords-fear-for-tenants-amid-energy-price-surges-72619?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60 

Number Of Homeowners Unable To Pay Winter Bills Up 80%

Over three quarters (76%) of Brits will cut back on their regular outgoings to pay for their heating this winter – an increase of 29% on last year, according to research from MoneySuperMarket. Over a third (38%) of Brits fear being unable to pay their energy bills - up 80% since last year, while 15% of homeowners anticipate there will be days their family will go cold. Sacrifices being made include reducing energy consumption in the home, via basic measures such as turning the lights off in empty rooms and turning appliances off at the wall (33%). Read more on the Property Reporter website.

https://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/household/number-of-homeowners-unable-to-pay-winter-bills-up-80.html

A Million Homes Lined Up For Energy Bill Cuts

One million more homes in England could be in line for help to cut their energy bills under the government’s latest strategy to tackle fuel poverty. Ministers plan to change the way the government calculates whether a household is fuel poor, after admitting that much more needs to be done to reach its own fuel poverty targets. Under the government’s current definition, 2.55m households live in fuel poverty because they have low income relative to high energy bills. Under the new definition about 3.66m households will be considered fuel poor because they meet the existing criteria and also live in draughty homes with low energy efficiency ratings. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/23/a-million-homes-lined-up-for-energy-bill-cuts

Landlords to Be Banned From Letting Draughtiest Homes

Landlords will be banned from renting out England and Wales’ draughtiest homes from 2018 in a bid to cut energy bills and carbon emissions. The new regulations are expected to help around a million tenants who are paying as much as £1,000 a year more than the average annual bill of £1,265 because of poorly insulated homes. Campaigners hailed the move as potentially the most significant piece of legislation in a generation aimed at improving building stock in England and Wales, which is some of the oldest and leakiest in Europe. Read more on the Guardian website.

Tower Block Residents Are Being Left In the Cold

Changes to the government’s support scheme for energy efficiency have seen tower block retrofit schemes shelved, leaving residents of Britain’s tower blocks in poor conditions with high energy bills. But new research shows that, in spite of the changes, there’s still a strong business case for putting tower blocks at the top rather than the bottom of the queue for energy retrofit. 400,000 homes in the UK are in tower blocks. Many are disadvantaged. Seventy one per cent of people living on or above the 5th floor are social rented sector tenants. Due to poor building fabric resident’s energy bills are often unmanageably high. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Social Housing Solar PV Scheme Is Europe’s Largest Crowd-Funded Venture

Two renewable energy companies from Yorkshire and Scotland have embarked on a partnership to deliver what is claimed to be Europe’s largest ever crowd-funded solar energy project. Oakapple Renewable Energy (ORE), based in Leeds, is working with Glasgow-based Edison Energy to install up to 794 roof-mounted solar PV systems with a total capacity of 2,595 kW for Berwickshire Housing Association (BHA), in the Scottish Borders. The £3.1 million scheme will roll out over four months and will be installed on houses across Berwickshire helping to reduce tenants’ energy bills by as much as 30% without any cost to them, the partners said. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Will 'World First' Energy Pilot See Tenants' Fuel Bills Fall?

Hundreds of council tenants are set to benefit from cheaper energy bills thanks to a world first trial, Wigan Borough Council has claimed.  More than 300 council homes in Wigan Borough  will be fitted with state-of-the-art smart energy systems developed by Japanese experts, in a trial that could lead to £20 million being invested in the local economy. The homes' current heating systems will be replaced with air source heat pumps which effectively act as air conditioning units in reverse, compressing air to produce heat and hot water. Read more on 24dash.

2.28m British Households Now Living In Fuel Poverty

More than one in 10 English households is now living in fuel poverty, Government figures show. The latest statistics published today – which date back to 2012 – show that in 2.28m properties people are struggling to be able to afford to heat their homes. The figures show that the number of homes in fuel poverty fell by almost five per cent over the year but the Department of Energy and Climate Change predicts that the number will climb by 2014 to 2.33m. Also the figure looks comparatively low as the Government has changed its measure for fuel poverty to take into account households with both high energy bills and low incomes. Read more on the Independent website.

Tenants Paying High Rents Cut Back On Food and Heating

The high cost of private rents is forcing some tenants to cut back on heating and food, according to a poll, underlining the pressure rising housing costs are putting on household finances. A survey of 1,000 tenants commissioned by the campaign group Generation Rent found two in five had reduced their energy bills, while a third have skimped on food to cut costs. The group, which is calling for reforms, including a national register of landlords and more affordable privately rented homes, said that the number of people facing problems is rising as the number of tenants grows. The most recent official survey of housing found that private renting had overtaken social renting – via housing associations and councils – to become the second most popular form of tenure in England. Read more on the Guardian website.

Besieged Tenants Get £500,000 Boost from Landlord

Tenants struggling to cope with the government's raft of changes to the benefits system and rising energy bills are more than £500,000 better off thanks to their social landlord.  Contour Homes, which manages more than 12,000 properties across the North West, has been working with families to secure them cheaper gas and electricity, and helping them to access benefits they are entitled to but haven’t been claiming. In less than a year, Contour’s revenue services team has helped tenants to:

• Access £377,799 in benefits they were eligible for but had not been receiving.

• Helped 79 households hit by the bedroom tax to secure £48,886 in discretionary housing payments (DHPs).

• Helped residents save more than £14,800 by switching to more affordable gas and electricity tariffs.

• Visited more than 1,180 tenants to offer advice and information about benefits changes.

• Provided six tenants with free representation at benefit appeal tribunals.

Read more on the Contour Homes website.

Half of Social Housing Tenants Forced To Choose Between Food and Fuel

Half of a social landlord's tenants think their energy bills are too high, with some even choosing between paying bills and buying food. That’s the result of a survey Warwickshire Rural Housing Association took of its households. The study was carried out as part of a partnership between WRHA and De Montfort University aimed at monitoring how the housing provider's tenants use energy and help them reduce bills by making small changes to the way they live. Read more on 24dash.

'Government Must Retrofit One Million Homes A Year'

The government must act to retrofit one million homes a year over the next 25 years if it is to end spiralling energy bills and curb carbon emissions, the UK Green Building Council has warned. With Chancellor George Osborne preparing to deliver his budget next week, the UK-GBC is urging him to make energy efficiency a top infrastructure priority, and in doing so "rescue the ailing Green Deal". The UK has over 25 million homes, most of which, the UK-GBC says, are hugely energy inefficient. Homes account for around a quarter of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Read more on 24dash.

Energy Green Deal 'Not Delivering'

Just 626 homes have completed the installation of energy efficiency measures under the Government's flagship Green Deal programme since it started a year ago. 1,612 households had Green Deal plans in progress up to the end of December, with 626 of those having completed the installation of measures such as new, more efficient boilers, solar electricity panels or insulation. Almost 130,000 homes had been assessed since last January with a view to signing up to the scheme, in which providers meet the upfront costs of installing efficiency measures and householders pay the money back from savings they make on their energy bills. The figures have prompted warnings that the scheme is not delivering in its current form. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Rising Damp

Landlords have warned of a sharp rise in the number of squeezed social housing tenants reporting mould and damp problems because they cannot afford to heat their homes. Rising energy bills and increasing fuel poverty are being blamed for a surge in the number of calls to landlords across the UK to deal with mould, damp and condensation compared with previous winters. Mould, which damages properties and tenants’ health, can increase in the winter if homes are not sufficiently heated because water vapour and condensation can build up. Read more on Inside Housing.

Landlords in Fix over Green Deal

The majority of large social landlords are not planning to allow tenants to make their own arrangements under the government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme. Citing fears about quality of works, damage to buildings and lenders’ concerns, landlords said they do not want tenants to agree their own deals when the green deal goes live in October.  An Inside Housing snap survey revealed that despite most landlords having no green deal plans in place, just two of the 17 largest landlords in Great Britain would grant consent for tenants to take up green deal offers. Nine landlords ruled out allowing tenants to commission the work while five said they had not decided.  Under the green deal, due to launch on 1 October, households will be able to receive loans to carry out energy-efficiency works on their homes. The cost of the measures – usually insulation – will then be recouped through resulting savings in energy bills. Read more on Inside Housing.

Government to Review the Green Deal

Downing Street is about to review the government's Green Deal after warnings that it's liable to fail.  The Cabinet Office has been interviewing critics of the flagship scheme and is expected to report soon.  The Deal - to insulate the UK's aged housing stock - is designed to save carbon emissions, keep people warm, and make energy affordable.  But critics say it won't give enough help to the fuel poor, and warn it may waste £2-3bn of people's energy bills.  They say this is a scandal after the recent warning that the number of people unable to afford their energy bills is likely to rise to 8.5 million.  Critics say it makes no sense to insulate solid walls at approximately £7,500 a home when you can insulate lofts of the "fuel poor" for £500 a home. They also argue that the subsidies scheme will force low-income families to pay extra on their fuel bills to subsidise solid wall insulation for more wealthy homes. Complaints have been so widespread that a Cabinet Office team was detailed to interview the critics, who estimate that by pushing money towards solid walls rather than lofts the government could waste between £2bn and £3bn of energy bill payers' money in coming years.  Read more on the BBC website.

How Can Housing Make The Most Of The Green Deal?

With months to go until the launch of the Green Deal, social landlords are preparing to make use of the government scheme that has promised to revolutionise the energy efficiency of the nation's homes.  The Green Deal will remove the upfront cost of installing energy efficient technologies, with residents paying off the balance through an increase in energy bills under a "golden rule" where the additional charge will not exceed the expected savings.  The scheme aims to retrofit 14m homes by 2020, cut carbon emissions from the UK's housing stock by 29% and generate £7bn of investment, creating up to 250,000 new jobs.  The initial response to the Green Deal was a combination of excitement, caution and confusion. The fund offered the chance for housing providers to improve the quality of their stock, tackle fuel poverty and mark out the social housing sector's place at the forefront of sustainability.  But there are reservations over how the deal will be implemented, questions about the practicalities of major retrofit programmes left unanswered, and further confusion prompted by coalition cuts to the Feed-in tariffs (Fits) scheme.  How housing can make the most of the Green Deal was the subject of a Guardian discussion. Read what the experts had to say on the Guardian website.

Top Tories Try to Torpedo Green Deal

Leading Tories believe the £14 billion “Green Deal” must be ditched because it risks leaving key “squeezed middle” voters out of pocket by several thousands of pounds.  Under the Green Deal, millions of householders would be encouraged to install energy-saving home improvements such as loft insulation or cavity wall insulation, with no up-front charge.  The work would be funded with loans of up to £10,000 which would be paid back though a surcharge on household energy bills.  Many ministers have long been sceptical of the scheme.  However, their mood has hardened into outright opposition following revelations this week of a new stealth “conservatory tax” faced by householders, estimated at adding around 10 per cent to the total bill for improvements. Under the proposal, those who wanted to extend their homes – or undertake repairs – would be required to sign up to the Green Deal as a condition of gaining planning permission for the work.  The group of ministers, which includes Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps, want the Government to abandon not just the compulsory “tax” element of the scheme, but the entire Green Deal.  Read more on the Telegraph website.

Shapps Calls On Social Landlords to Help Their Tenants Reduce Energy Bills

Housing Minister Grant Shapps today called on councils and housing associations across the country to help their tenants during this time of high energy prices by taking steps that could save each tenant up to £500 a year on energy bills and create thousands of jobs in their local communities. With the countdown to the Government's Green Deal initiative underway, the Minister urged social landlords to make a positive difference to their tenants' lives by using existing funding models to start their own 'Pay As You Save' scheme, making homes in their area warmer and more comfortable to live in, and at the same time cheaper to run. Read more on the CLG website.