EFPC supporter Age UK has this week published a new report which calls on the Government to urgently tackle the nation’s problem of fuel poverty by driving forward a massive energy efficiency programme. The report argues that the only long term solution to ending the fuel poverty crisis is to make people’s homes as energy efficient as possible so that households can keep adequately warm at an affordable cost.
Age UK is calling for the Government’s anticipated fuel poverty strategy to include:
- Targets to make all homes ‘fuel poverty proof’ – improving homes to a modern standard of energy efficiency, making them affordable to keep adequately warm
- Whole-house improvements – not just offering the single most energy efficient measure but doing more if this is needed to make a house affordable to heat
- Area-based, locally driven programmes – these are more cost effective to deliver than ‘scatter-gun approaches’
- Serious involvement from the NHS, recognising fuel poverty as a driver of ill health
- Steps to tackle fuel poverty in rural areas as well as urban ones – fuel poverty is particularly prevalent in rural areas due to the high number of stone-built, solid wall properties and households who are off-mains gas.