Warm Streets Communities
Warm Streets Communities
Supporting local groups for finding referrals to the Warm Streets scheme
In 2009, the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) launched a new project to work with a select number of community groups across Somerset, North Somerset, and Bath & North East Somerset. The aim was to establish good links with groups through helping to encourage their local residents to act on energy issues.
Initially a six-month pilot, Warm Streets Communities is now an ongoing project. It provides a mix of funding and practical support for those local groups signed up to the scheme, to help them engage with and refer local residents to the long-standing CSE-run insulation scheme, Warm Streets.
The Warm Streets scheme helps householders apply for grants for free and subsidised home insulation, funded by Scottish and Southern Energy and the local councils. Alongside loft and cavity wall insulation, the scheme also offers free and impartial benefit entitlement checks and energy efficiency advice.
At the moment there's an exciting trial of free water saving shower heads, which save a lot of energy, both through water use and through heating water.
Warm Streets Communities supports a range of grassroots organisations
Through establishing the network of local community groups, CSE aims to support different ideas and approaches to community engagement, encouraging individuals in the community to act on energy issues, and generating referrals to the Warm Streets scheme.
Groups can tap into CSE's expertise and support, and benefit from payments for each successful referral to the insulation scheme. CSE's support for the groups has included energy awareness training for members, talks, presentations, action planning sessions, publicity materials information sheets and help planning home energy audits.
A total of 13 groups across the region were chosen for the initial pilot project in 2009:
- Axevale Consortium for Energy
- Forum 21
- Mendip Energy Volunteers
- Pill and Community Warm Streets
- Target 80
- Taunton Transition Town
- Transition Town Langport
- Quantock Eco
- Sustainable Backwell
- Transition Portishead
- Transition Wellington
- Deane Energy Saver
- Energy Efficient Widcombe
As part of the Warm Streets Communities project, we ran a showerhead pilot from autumn 2010 through to spring 2011, in which seven of the groups gave out free energy saving showerheads in their local communities.
These showerheads are a low-cost and easy option for householders to adopt, but they can have a big impact on reducing energy use.
As well as the energy needed to heat water for showers, energy is also needed to deliver mains water to every household – and then to pump it around the home to reach your shower.
The showerheads used in the pilot were a brand that reduced the flow of water by aerating the water, so that the effect is not very noticeable in the stream of water that comes out of the shower or tap.
The pilot is still ongoing and groups are still distributing the showerheads (they are not compatible with electric showers which restricts the number of households that can take one) and an evaluation of this pilot will be carried out later in the year.
Click to download examples of support available through Warm Streets Communities
Click to download the presentation from the Sustainable Backwell Insulation Workshop (November 2010)