by Michael Smith
Current policies to make low-carbon and more energy efficient homes risk leaving low income households out in the cold.
That was the warning from Dr Brenda Boardman, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute.
Speaking at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on Wednesday, Dr Boardman said that households who were in fuel poverty were not being given enough help to radically reduce their bills.
Meanwhile Government grants for low-carbon improvements such as micro-generation were, instead, being dished out to people who had already been able to pay to make their homes more energy efficient, she said.
"What I want to try to do is to make sure that low income households get low carbon homes," Dr Boardman said.
"I think there's a real risk at the moment that the only people with low carbon homes are going to be the rich."
She called for Ministers to revolutionise policies to boost energy efficiency in homes and to help the fuel poor.
Energy Performance Certificates could be used to identify the worst performing homes and the people who are in the most need of help to bring down their bills, Dr Boardman proposed.
"I think we need to start targeting people with the least efficient homes," she said. "We need a database of EPCs.
"We can't just rely on those from when a house is sold. We also need to generate an EPC when there's a Warm Front visit or a building regulations approval and then that should be given to the local authority."
Conservative estimates suggest that 70% of the UK's existing housing stock will still be in use by 2050, when the Climate Change Bill will require overall greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by at least 80%. Other estimates suggest it could be more than 90% of current housing.
The majority of people who are in fuel poverty are also in poverty or very close to real poverty and often do not even own their homes but rent from housing associations, local councils (where there are still housing stock held in council hands) and from other landlords. Hence, as they do not own those homes they have no way of improving upon the home's energy efficiency.
Even if they do own their homes, and that is a small proportion of those in fuel poverty, of that I am nigh on certain, they just do not have the means to do anything about making their homes more energy efficient. As to micro-generation, that is entirely a no go in rented homes, and also a no possibility for those in the latter case, e.g. those that own but have not the means to pay everything.
There should be an obligation on landlords – whether private or councils – to make homes energy efficient. This has to be done, though, in such as way as not to financially burden then already overburdened tenants.
Improving the existing housing stock is something that should have priority over any kind of Eco-Town developments and it should be those that can least afford to pay for energy that should, first and foremost, benefit and not those that can pay for the stuff out of their own deep pockets.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
Low-carbon homes policies are only helping the rich
