Fuel poverty is in the news again with oil prices on the up. The traditional way of dealing with this has been to give people in need a bit of cash to help them over the winter. This strikes us as a sticking plaster approach. You have to go on doing it year after year, and vulnerable people are still shivering rather than turn the heat on. Wouldn't it be much better to fix the houses so that they didn’t leak so much heat, so less fuel is needed to keep them significantly warmer and cosier?

With a one off investment in refurbishing homes to make them more energy efficient with insulation and draught proofing we can also make them significantly cheaper to heat, so people benefit from warmth at a lower cost year after year. As well as additional comfort it also means that less scarce fossil fuels are burnt, with less damaging carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. That’s why we are supporting the Grand Designs Great British Refurb campaign. It is calling on Government to:

• Offer households new ways to pay for green refurbishment, which would significantly reduce upfront costs and instead spread them over a longer period of time.
• Provide better financial incentives for householders to refurbish their homes to make them greener and more energy efficient, through substantial government grants, subsidies or tax rebates. 
• Ensure installers are qualified and approved to undertake the work.
  

Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud is presenting the signed petition at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday this week, so if you haven’t already, you can sign it here.

Tomorrow he and others involved in the campaign are building and insulating a model house outside parliament to show what can be done and why MPs and government should provide the financial support to kick start a massive refurb programme.

Photo by thingermerjig

If you have a question about anything in the above blog, please ask it in the comments section below.