DOZENS of Calderdale families are to get help – as heating costs soar.
A new fund of more than £330,000 has been made available to help cut fuel bills by making more homes energy efficient.
Some households will see work worth thousands of pounds done on their homes.
Calderdale Council announced the scheme after British Gas revealed a 6% hike in gas and electricity tariffs.
Other energy firms have followed suit.
Scottish Power announced its prices will rise by an average 7% while SSE, which trades as Southern Electric, Swalec and Scottish Hydro, increased its tariffs by 9%.
The project will focus on improving homes that aren’t suitable for fibre insulation by using alternative products.
In Calderdale, 80 homes within some of the most deprived or in-need areas will be included in the pilot project worth up to £6,500 for each home.
Of those 40 traditional older stone properties could benefit from measures such as narrow cavity insulation, solid wall insulation, attic room insulation, renewables and boiler upgrades.
Energy efficiency upgrade works could also include solid wall insulation, heating upgrades and loft insulation works in 40 non-traditional ‘system built’ houses with steel frames or concrete panel walls.
Calderdale Council is using money from the Leeds City Region to ensure some of the lowest income households benefit from a new Green Deal scheme in a bid to cut fuel poverty.
A household is classed as being in fuel poverty if they need to spend more than 10% of household income on domestic energy to achieve a satisfactory heating regime of 21ºC in the living room and 18ºC in other occupied rooms.
Clr Janet Battye, the authority’s deputy leader and lead representative for Calderdale on the Leeds City Region Green Economy Panel, said: “The council is working hard to improve affordable warmth for our more vulnerable residents, and to increase the use of renewable energy sources.
“The pilot project will help improve our existing experience in providing insulation solutions for the area’s older stone properties which aren’t suitable for traditional insulation.”
The project will allow some of the key elements of the Government’s new Green Deal framework to be tested to help local residents improve the energy efficiency rating of their homes.
The £330,000 funding is part of the £2.5 million awarded to the Leeds City Region by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to provide financial assistance to residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
Clr Barry Collins, the council’s Cabinet Member for Economy and Environment, added: “The new project will help to make homes warmer and cheaper to heat, as well as developing longer term ambitions of creating new jobs in the green economy, cutting carbon emissions and helping to protect residents against long-term energy price rises.”
Calderdale’s Economy and Environment Scrutiny Panel will set out plans for a review of fuel poverty in the borough.
It will examine the cause and extent of fuel poverty in Calderdale and make recommendations to the council and partner agencies including social and private rented housing providers, housing developers, energy suppliers and advice agencies before February 2013.
Between 2008-11 over 7,800 local households were supported with a range of measures to combat fuel poverty.
