Countryside Faces ‘Fuel Poverty’ Crisis

People living in rural areas have been left behind by government drives to make homes more energy efficient, charities have warned. This leaves them vulnerable to rising energy prices. Research by National Energy Action and the Campaign to Protect Rural England shows that rural areas are five years behind urban areas in the energy efficiency of homes – and are paying nearly 55% more for their fuel as a result. The charities have called on ministers to establish new energy-efficiency initiatives to help people reduce their energy consumption, particularly those in fuel poverty, who cannot afford to heat their homes. Read more on the Observer website.

Fear Keeps Private Sector Tenants Shivering In Cold Homes

Tenants living in the private rented sector are enduring cold homes because they are worried about high heating bills and fear eviction if they complain to their landlords, according to research by Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). The research was carried out to provide a better understanding of the “lived reality” of energy efficiency in private rented sector housing. It was funded by the Eaga Charitable Trust, an independent grant-giving trust dedicated to combating fuel poverty. The private rented sector is the fastest growing tenure in England. It houses a higher proportion of poor and vulnerable households than any other tenure and contains a higher proportion of the least energy-efficient properties. Read more on the SHU website.

How Does The UK Compare With The Rest Of The EU On Key Housing Issues?

The UK is not alone in experiencing a housing crisis. Homelessness is increasing across Europe. Most worryingly, the biggest rise has been amongst young people. Faced with an increasingly competitive and expensive housing market due to the severe shortage of houses young people across the EU are remaining at home longer than ever. Where this isn’t an option, they are increasingly left with nowhere to live. Where people have a home there are often issues with quality; housing deprivation has increased in most EU countries while overcrowding, disrepair, and fuel poverty remain significant problems.  Read more on the NHF website.

Green Deal Funding To End, Government Announces

The government has announced it is to cease funding for the Green Deal, spelling the end for its flagship energy household efficiency programme. The scheme offers cashbacks and incentives on such things as double-glazing, insulation and boilers. The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said it took the decision to protect taxpayers, citing low take-up and concerns about industry standards. Labour said ministers' approach to energy efficiency had been a "failure". DECC said it would work with the building industry and consumer groups to agree a new "value-for-money approach". Future schemes needed to provide better value for money, and support the goal of insulating one million more homes and the government's commitment to tackle fuel poverty, it said. Read more on the BBC website.

2.4m Families in Fuel Poverty

The number of families living in fuel poverty remains ‘broadly unchanged’ since 2012, despite government promises to tackle the problem. Statistics published by the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) show around 2.35 million households were living in fuel poverty in 2013, representing 10.4% of England. The Fuel Poverty Annual Report 2015 said: ‘This is broadly unchanged from 2.36 million households in 2012 [a change of around 0.5%].’ In July 2013, former Liberal Democrat energy secretary Ed Davey said the government was committed to tackling fuel poverty, despite scrapping a target to eradicate the problem. At the time, the government was accused of ‘shifting the goalposts on fuel poverty’. Download a copy of the report from the DECC website.

10% of All Households Are In Fuel Poverty

Before any analysis on fuel poverty, we need to decide what we mean by it. Helpfully, Professor John Hills (LSE) has provided us with a revised definition of fuel poverty. A household is considered to be fuel poor where:

·         they have required fuel costs that are above the average, and

·         were they to spend that amount, they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line.

Incredibly, using this definition would mean that 10% of all households in England are in fuel poverty (over 2 million households). But who are these households? They aren’t distributed evenly across the country, but reflect complex relationships between income, stock condition, household formation, climate and how far the gas network stretches. Read more on the NHF website.

Fuel Poverty Killed 15,000 People Last Winter

An estimated 15,000 people died unnecessarily between December and March because they were living in homes they couldn’t afford to heat, new figures show. The news has led campaigners to hit out at what they claim is an inadequate Conservative pledge to help freezing people by insulating homes. Fuel poverty campaigners reckon the number of excess winter deaths surged last winter to 49,260, of which around 14,780 were due to people living in cold homes. The Energy Bill Revolution estimates that the average number of excess winter deaths over the previous five years was 27,830, so last winter saw an increase of 77 per cent above the five year average. Read more on the Independent website.

More Than One Million Families Now Live In Fuel Poverty

More than one million families with children cannot afford to heat and light their homes, official figures have disclosed. The number of English families in fuel poverty has climbed steadily over the last decade to reach 1,027,000. The total comprises 679,000 two-parent families and 348,000 single-parent households. Campaigners said they had been hit by a combination of soaring energy costs and the squeeze on benefits. By contrast many pensioner households have escaped fuel poverty because of the help older people receive with energy bills and the protection of pension levels. Read more on the Independent website.

Landlords’ Multi-Billion-Pound Fuel Poverty Hit

The government’s fuel poverty strategy has left social landlords responsible for funding billions of pounds of improvement works, senior housing figures have warned. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has published proposals to scrap its legally binding target to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016. Instead, it has set a new target of ‘as many fuel poor homes as is reasonably practicable’ to meet a minimum ‘C’ energy performance certificate ranking by 2030. The new targets have been condemned by fuel poverty campaigners as a reduction in ambition. Social landlords have also questioned whether they are achievable given the strategy also confirms plans to reduce the energy company obligation, which funds most work to make homes more energy efficient. The exact cost to social landlords of meeting the target is hard to pin down – estimates range between £7.2bn to £27bn. Read more on Inside Housing.

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 Save Half A Million Pounds through Housing Provider's Scheme

A housing provider's scheme to help people in fuel poverty and facing financial difficulties has saved its tenants nearly half a million pounds of debt in just over a year. Liverpool Mutual Homes partnered with social enterprise organisation Local Solutions to promote a fuel debt, energy efficiency and money advice service to support residents. Tenants have saved a combined £454,356 in 13 months, the majority coming from officers helping residents apply for grants. Read more on 24dash.

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.

Housing Associations Urged To Embrace Social Enterprise Model

Housing associations should act as "anchors" for social enterprises and adopt their principles to tackle community issues such as fuel poverty, deprivation and poor health. Melanie Mills, chief executive of Social Enterprise West Midlands (SEWM), told a forum of around 20 registered social landlords that housing associations are "already active in the areas many of our members want to be working in, which gives way to potentially very successful partnerships".  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

DECC Redefines Fuel Poverty

The Government has set out a new definition of fuel poverty to take better account of the problems of households struggling with low incomes. Under the current definition, a ‘fuel poor household’ is one that would need to spend 10% of its income on energy a year. Following an independent review and a consultation, the new definition has been set out to “ensure support is targeted at those who need it most”. Now, a household is defined as fuel poor if its total income is below the poverty line (taking into account energy costs), and where energy costs are higher than is typical.  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Hundreds of Thousands Face Fuel Poverty Misery

A massive shortfall in funding for insulation programmes for low-income households will leave the Government's fuel poverty target in tatters, according to a new report. Research undertaken by fuel poverty charity National Energy Action (NEA) shows that hundreds of thousands of households will be living in poorly insulated properties by 2016 – the date by which the Government undertook to eradicate fuel poverty in England. The figures show that even on the most optimistic estimates, 45% of fuel-poor households who could benefit from cavity wall insulation – the single most cost-effective energy-saving measure – will be excluded from support as a result of inadequate funding. Read more on the NEA website.

Social Landlords Miss Out On Energy Schemes

The government has not properly recognised the role social landlords can play in cutting fuel poverty through schemes to promote renewable power generation, a report has found.  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study, Renewable energy: getting the benefits right for social housing, argues the design of mechanisms such as the feed-in tariff were based around economic rather than social demands, meaning the social housing sector failed to take advantage of the scheme. The JRF report states: ‘Only a minority of social landlords were then able to progress. Continuing uncertainty over future rates has left most schemes either abandoned or postponed indefinitely.’  The report calls for more certainty for the FIT and similar mechanisms such as the renewable heat incentive so landlords can ‘make long-term plans about retrofit strategies with confidence’.  Download a copy of the report from the JRF 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.

Fuel Poverty to Rise By 38% Despite Green Deal

The number of fuel poor households living in English social housing is expected to soar by 38 per cent by 2016 as the government’s flagship energy efficiency policies fail to tackle the problem, exclusive figures show. According to calculations by green consultancy Camco, the number of social tenants in fuel poverty will rise from just under 1 million to 1.35 million in four years. This is despite the government’s legal obligation to do ‘everything reasonably practicable’ to eliminate fuel poverty - when households spend more than 10 per cent of their income to keep their homes warm - by 2016. Social landlords face an additional funding gap as the government is proposing to exclude them from affordable warmth energy company obligation funding worth around £500 million over the next 10 years, according to Camco. Read more on Inside Housing.

Social Housing Could Be Saved From Extra FIT Cut

The government is consulting on plans to protect social housing solar photovoltaic panel schemes from an especially heavy cut to solar subsidies as part of an overhaul of the feed-in tariff system. In a consultation paper, climate change minister Greg Barker, proposes that social housing, community projects and distributed energy schemes should be exempt from an additional 20 per cent cut to the FIT rate for large scale solar schemes. The move will be welcomed by those that have lobbied for equal FITs rates for the social housing sector so that landlords can tackle fuel poverty - however, it will be largely eclipsed by the solar industry’s angry reaction to the bulk of the proposals that have seen an overhaul of the FIT. Under the new proposals, the government plans to introduce a mechanism for more regular degression of the FIT so that it is more closely linked to the falling costs of PV. This will mean more frequent cuts to the FIT leading to accusations from the sector that the government is inflicting further damage on the solar industry. The first reduction will see a 25 per cent fall in the FIT from the 1 April level of 21p on 1 July. The consultation closes on 3 April 2012, you can download a copy of the consultation paper from the DECC website.

Seven Million Households Live In Fuel Poverty

More than seven million households in the UK are currently estimated to be living in fuel poverty, a leading energy charity reveals. National Energy Action explains that around 1.5 million more households cannot afford to properly heat their homes than at the same time last year - despite the Government's pledge to eradicate all fuel poverty by 2016. Households are considered in fuel poverty when they have to spend more than a tenth of their income on energy bills. It is usually caused by a combination of low incomes, high energy prices and energy-inefficient housing. The charity warns that because they worry about their rising bills, many people ration their heating use to such an extent that it has a serious impact on their health. As temperatures plummet, the charity launches its Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, urging all households struggling with their bills to stop “suffering in silence” and seek help “immediately”. Read more on the NEA website.