Warm Streets
Warm Streets
Tackling cold homes and carbon emissions across Somerset, North Somerset, and Bath and North East Somerset
Warm Streets is a major project which aims to achieve a ‘step change’ in the take up of energy efficiency measures.
The project kicked off in October 2008 and is funded by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) with additional support from the five district councils of Somerset along with the unitary authorities of Bath & North East Somerset and North Somerset.
It builds on the experience of the Somerset Warm & Well scheme which ran from 2003 to 2008 and stimulated the installation of some 10,000 insulation measures. Warm Streets expands on the success of Warm and Well by aiming to quadruple the amount of measures installed and widen the focus of the project through the provision of benefits advice and leading an innovative community engagement initiative.
Warm Streets is available to all households across the council areas but, through its focused marketing activity and offerings, particularly targets vulnerable households in, or at risk of, fuel poverty.
The scheme provides:
- A basic home energy survey (SAP level 0)
- Free cavity wall and loft insulation measures for those on Priority Group eligible benefits or over 70 or meeting council grant criteria (see below)
- Significantly discounted (up to 50%) cavity wall and loft insulation for all other households
- Heating system upgrades (for those on eligible benefits via referral to the Government’s Warm Front grant scheme)
- Free benefits checks and assistance in making benefits claims when households are identified as eligible
Warm Streets will increase the number of adequately insulated homes in Somerset
The addition of a free benefits check and claims assistance will help to ensure that vulnerable households are (a) securing their full income entitlement (making them more able to afford their fuel bills) and (b) gaining access to free insulation measures (which are dependent on them being in receipt of benefits, not simply being eligible for them). We estimate this element of Warm Streets will secure an additional £1.3 million a year in income for some of the most vulnerable households in the area.
Warm Streets delivers of events and activities throughout the year to engage with householders and community groups, including running the first Somerset Energy Forum in October 2009. The project aims to actively encourage sustainable communities, as part of which a community engagement pilot is currently being trialed.
The innovative community engagement part of the project invites community groups to sign up to the initiative and send insulation referrals from households in their community to CSE, where on receipt and/or instalment of the measure the community group will be rewarded either with a cash incentive or ‘in-kind’ support from CSE.
Many services can be provided through the ‘in-kind’ support but examples include a feasibility study for a renewable project, energy education workshops in local schools, and training on how to find funding for community energy projects.
Warm streets was piloted in winter 2007/08 with support from Defra’s Community Energy Efficiency Fund and Scottish and Southern which is backing the current project as part of their programme to meet their carbon emissions reduction target (CERT), an obligation placed by Government on all energy suppliers to deliver reductions in carbon emissions in the household sector.
If you'd like to find out if Warm Streets can help you get a grant for your home insulation, click here.