Contents
1.0 Executive Summary ... 3
2.0 Introduction ... 5
3.0 Context ... 7
4.0 Community Plan Priorities ... 11
5.0 Low Carbon Zones ... 13
6.0 Outcomes ... 19
7.0 Barriers ... 25
8.0 Lessons learned ... 28
9.0 Recommendations ... 34
10.0 Conclusions & Next Steps ... 37
Appendix 1 Full housing and population breakdown in Ham & Petersham area ... 41
Appendix 2 Original budget for LCZ ... 42
Appendix 3 Anticipated spend for project ... 43
Appendix 4 Diversity data ... 45
Appendix 5 The Green Deal ... 47
Appendix 6 Comparison with RE:NEW scheme in Whitton ... 49
Appendix 7 Green Streets ... 53
Appendix 8 Acknowledgements ... 55
1.0 Executive Summary
Richmond Council aims to be the greenest local authority in Greater London. In 2009 it applied to the GLA with an ambitious programme to convert its ward of Ham & Petersham into a Low Carbon Zone (LCZ), a defined community where energy efficiency, affordable warmth and renewable energy generation becomes more normal.
1Thermal image of a house in the LCZ
Any ambitious target presents risks, especially one linked to carbon emissions which are dependent on so many interlocking factors in how we live our lives. And with risks comes opportunity. The LCZ in
Richmond has been a unique opportunity for Richmond’s work on tackling fuel poverty and improving affordable warmth for residents. It has helped the Sustainability Team develop new and constructive working relationships with the community and partner
organisations.
In this evaluation report we look at how the Low Carbon Zone project was delivered and whether it met its objectives.
As well as working in a better way with our community, we achieved an 18.7% CO2
reduction from just over 1000 households and a number of local schools, businesses and community groups. While we clearly have more work to do on emissions reductions, we are justifiably proud of our reach into the community, the reputation and links we’ve developed, and the people we’ve helped.
Finally, we have identified some lessons to learn for the future to help our plans of rolling out the LCZ model across the borough. We believe the lessons learned will be of use to other projects and communities across the country.
2.0 Introduction
This is the formal evaluation report for the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames’s Low Carbon Zone project, which was funded by the Greater London Authority.
The report first sets out the context of Richmond, the Low Carbon Zone and what we were hoping to achieve. It is important when evaluating a scheme that the contributing factors to its creation and its effect are established, to set it in context. You will find information on issues such as population, carbon emissions, employment rates and housing. The first part also establishes the need for the Low Carbon Zone, and what its objectives and targets were.
In the second part, the report evaluates how well we achieved our aims, and gives lessons and recommendations for the future, so that the best aspects of the scheme can be transferred across the borough and shared with other communities across the country.
3.0 Context
This section introduces the borough of Richmond and also the ward of Ham & Petersham. It gives background details1 on population and housing, as well as baseline data on carbon emissions. It
also sets out what the authority and its partners hoped to achieve when it bid to the GLA to implement a Low Carbon Zone.
3.1 Environment
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is located in south west London, and straddles the river Thames. It stretches from Barnes in the north east, where it borders the London Boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham and Wandsworth, to Hampton in the south west, forming part of the edge of Greater London, where it borders Elmbridge Borough Council. The Thames forms a significant part of the borough’s border, and bisects the borough. The London Borough of Hounslow forms part of the north-west border, and Kingston upon Thames the southern border.
Richmond upon Thames is a green borough, with some large parks and areas of significant biodiversity and a high recycling rate (over 42%). However its air pollution levels are a concern; as with most of Greater London, the whole borough is classed as an Air Quality Management Area. There is continuing concern about noise levels from flights coming in and out of Heathrow to the west, and there is a significant risk of flooding from climate change effects.
3.2 Carbon emissions
The borough’s carbon emissions are estimated by the Department of Energy & Climate Change at 947,000tCO22. The carbondioxide emissions from housing are estimated at 460,640tCO2, giving
Richmond a domestic carbon footprint of 2.46 tonnes of CO2 per capita per annum3.
We calculated CO2 emissions at the start of the project for the whole of Ham and Petersham to be
17,102 tCO2/year. The CO2 emissions for participants in the LCZ project for each of the building
types was as follows:
Building type Baseline (tCO2)
Domestic 2,468 School 841 Business 155 Community 863 Total 4,327 3.3 Population
Since 2005 the borough population has risen by just over 4%, from ~183,600 in 2005 to an
estimated 187,000 in 2010, although there are higher estimates. For calculation purposes, we use a midpoint figure of 187,200 based on ONS early estimates from the 2011 Census. The population is projected by the ONS to rise by 27% over the 2010 figure, to 241,500 by 20334.
3.4 Ethnicity
The borough has a relatively low ethnic diversity when compared to the rest of London, though it is higher than much of England and Wales. People identifying themselves as being White (British, Irish or Other) constitute 84.6% of the population, with Asian or Asian British making up 6.4%, Black or Black British 3.1%, Mixed race 2.8% and Chinese and other ethnicities making up the remainder at 2.8%.
3.5 Deprivation
The borough is one of the least deprived areas in England and Wales and in London. However, there are some pockets of serious deprivation in the borough, including the wards of Ham, Petersham and Richmond Riverside.
3.6 Employment
Following the borough profile as one of the least deprived areas of London, employment rates are above average for London, at 75.3% compared to 68.1% London-wide. This high employment rate
2
Source: www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_stats/data/data.aspx 3
Based on a population estimate of 187,200 from the 2011 Census results 4
is mirrored in Richmond upon Thames’s job creation rate, which has created more jobs since 2001 than the national average.
3.7 Voluntary groups
There is an active volunteering culture across the borough. Within the Low Carbon Zone there are a number of voluntary groups. Ham United Group (“HUG”) was involved in the Council’s initial bid to the GLA and became the local community delivery partner.
3.8 Housing
There are around 76,100 homes in the borough, with a high ownership rate of 69%, and 16% of households rented privately. Social housing makes up ~15% of the housing stock.
4.0 Community Plan Priorities
The Community Plan sets out a vision for the borough over the years 2007-20175, and is
conceived by the Richmond Strategic Partnership. There are a number of key aims in the Plan which set the context for the Low Carbon Zone and its evaluation. A summary of those aims is given below, with all data sourced from the Community Plan.
4.1 The greenest borough in London
The borough’s Community Plan 2007 – 2017 identified climate change and energy issues as key threats and opportunities for the borough and its communities. In the Community Plan, the second priority is to be “The greenest borough in London”. The Thames and extreme weather events linked to climate change put the borough at particular risk from flooding. It is likely that longer, higher temperatures or changes in weather patterns leading to deeper cold spells will have significant health consequences, too, but these have not been quantified as yet.
The borough’s vision is to set a regional and national example by making Richmond upon Thames the greenest borough in London. In particular, we want to set the standard for reducing domestic and business energy consumption, and also transport emissions. We are the second highest borough in London for domestic CO2 emissions per capita and the eleventh highest for road
transport emissions per capita. The Community Plan aims are to:
• Reduce the borough’s large carbon footprint through awareness raising;
• Raise the energy performance of existing buildings and ensure new development is to high environmental standards;
• Tackle climate change through an integrated approach with our partners in the local business, housing, transport, public, voluntary and community sectors.
4.2 Tackling inequality
Despite the borough’s relative affluence, there are pockets of deprivation, and the Community Plan rightly addresses these as a priority.
The relevant Community Plan aims are to:
• Work with the voluntary and community sector to help local people from different backgrounds to have a voice in designing and improving local services; and
• Work jointly with the voluntary and community sector to ensure that all our communities are able to access quality services.
5.0 Low Carbon Zones
The Greater London Authority (“GLA”), as part of its Climate Change Strategy, created an ambition in 2008 to implement ten Low Carbon Zones across London6. These were to act as pilot areas to
identify how to de-carbonise London’s housing stock, improve its affordable warmth rating, while including the community in the work.
The GLA’s overall aim was to reduce CO2 emissions by 20.12% by 2012 and Richmond upon
Thames was successful in its bid to create one of the ten pilot zones. 5.1 The Ham & Petersham area
Reducing carbon emissions is an abstract idea for most people. Carbon dioxide can’t be seen or smelled, and for the most part the energy producing it is only associated with good things that people want: warmth, cooking and light.
We wanted to bridge the gap between reducing energy use, or improving the warmth and comfort of homes, whilst also reducing carbon emissions. And simultaneously, we wanted the community we chose to feel more empowered, to know that they had a say in how the project would happen, and to contribute to closing those inequalities identified through the Census and Community Plan. It was also important to us that we chose an area which could be seen as a cohesive,
geographically defined community, based around common housing and defined estate areas with a mixture of housing types. For this reason, we chose to concentrate on Ham & Petersham.
The area is sandwiched between the Thames and Richmond Park, and has areas of both wealth and relative disadvantage. It has a history of
community-run activity, and active community groups which we thought would be useful to help deliver the project.
In numbers: • 3,750 homes • 6 schools • 70 small businesses • 25 community buildings 6 www.london.gov.uk/priorities/environment/climate-change/low-carbon-zones
5.2 Our Philosophy
Any Low Carbon Zone (“LCZ”) is achieved through a mixture of technological changes (eg, boiler replacements), infrastructure changes (eg, adding insulation) and behaviour change.
Behaviour change is the key. It is the start of the other changes. To access the technology and other energy saving measures on offer, residents have to make a choice: this is a behavioural start. For this reason, our philosophy was adopted from the DEFRA Pro-Environmental Behaviours Framework, and adapted to tie in with the build up to the London 2012 Olympics:
The core of our philosophy was to catalyse action on taking part in the community, acting on climate change and reducing energy use or increasing affordable warmth.
We said that we would de-carbonise the Ham & Petersham area in a couple of ways:
Spatially, by gradually expanding the perimeter (widening the boundary) of the zone over time and declaring similar zones in other areas, and
Temporally, by developing the capacity to deliver savings beyond 2012. Engagement was identified as being a key part of this. We wanted to:
use effective marketing and communication, establish a resident champion’s scheme, make energy use more visible and
create visible reminders of the area’s low carbon zone status. To ensure more advanced technology changes could happen, we agreed to encourage residents to use grants, discounts and loans. These were intended to include:
Interest free loans up to £5,000 to install renewable technologies and low carbon technologies. The loan was to be secured on the householder’s property and not repaid until ownership changed or was transferred;
An energy bank where residents could receive discounts on measures higher up the energy spiral (right) of energy saving measures; and
A community reward scheme where residents would receive tokens to donate to schools and community organisations.
Showing by example was identified as important, and in our bid to the GLA, we intended to exemplify low carbon buildings by funding demonstration homes early on and retrofitting schools and other public buildings and supporting businesses.
And finally, we thought it was important to enable residents to make the right decisions and provide and develop the necessary skills for home improvement. We said we would work with the business community to ensure access to energy saving products and organise events so residents could meet the suppliers and learn more about energy saving measures. And we committed to continuing our close work with the schools and local businesses through our popular Schools Go Green and Richmond Go Green programmes.
5.3 Project aims
With the philosophy in place, the project aim was simple: to reduce domestic CO2 emissions in 500
households in the designated zone by 20.12% by 2012.
The project goal was set against a context of a 60% CO2 emissions reduction by 2025, which is the
Mayoral CO2 reduction target7.
The LCZ application committed to replicating the LCZ model across the borough following the 2009-12 project timeline.
5.4 Project approach
We worked in partnership to deliver this project with the following organisations: London Sustainability Exchange Community outreach and development.
British Gas Incorporation of the Green Streets Programme and home energy audits and distribution of simple energy saving measures.
Ham United Group Local community group who advised on project development and were able to help recruit volunteers for the Street
Champions scheme. South West London Environment
Network
Local charity which focuses on community and
environmental programmes, and who delivered some home energy assessments and trained and coordinated our Street Champions scheme when it was up and running.
To coordinate all of this activity, the council employed a Low Carbon Zone Coordinator to act as project manager.
The project’s different approaches were encapsulated in the following graphic:
5.5 Project resources
The original funding for the LCZ was broken down by contributions from the GLA and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames (LBRuT):
Actual spend
Funding body 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 Total spend
GLA £71,287.54 £172,347.14 £103,452.06 £347,086.74
Richmond £22,992.00 £19,438.67 £1,343.04 £43,773.71 Total £94,279.54 £191,785.81 £104,795.10 £390,860.45 The formal project partners identified within our GLA bid expected to contribute the following
human resources1:
Partner FTE2 contribution
LBRuT ~1.6 FTE/year3
British Gas ~0.3 FTE/year
London Sustainability Exchange 0.2 FTE (first year only) Richmond Environment Network and Ham United
Group ~0.2 FTE
Total 2.3 FTE per year, taking into account
annual variations.
Notes:
1 Drawn from the application documents.
2 “FTE” means a Full Time Equivalent employee.(Hence 1 FTE can be two full time people each contributing half of their time, to make up one full time equivalent).
3 All FTE figures drawn from application documents.
In practice the human resources are difficult to track accurately for the following reasons: o London Sustainability Exchange was expecting to work for the full three years on the
project, but due to funding limitations had to pull out after Year 1. The Year 1 contribution of 0.2 FTE therefore dropped off in subsequent years.
o The LBRuT contribution was 1 FTE (Low Carbon Zone Coordinator) plus contributions from other officers in the Sustainability Team. The council operates no formal time recording system, so the additional 0.6 remains an estimate. The Low Carbon Communities Coordinator was fundamental to delivering the project. The Officer took on project
management of the scheme, and his passion and commitment helped keep the scheme on track while the council went through staff changes and some partner organisations had to pull out.
o Voluntary contributions from HUG, Street Champions, and volunteer management from South West London Environment Network weren’t time recorded, and may constitute a total 0.7 FTE (pro rata) in each year. As with the officer resource, the voluntary contribution was fundamental to successful development of the Low Carbon Zone. With council officers and SWLEN working behind the scenes to manage the project, volunteers worked hard to deliver changes in the community. Street Champions made the affordable warmth and energy efficiency work normal for their neighbours. This removed a number of barriers to take up (see 6.3 below), increasing success.
6.0 Outcomes
6.1 Participating households and take-up of environmental measures
The following data represents what was achieved by 31 March 2012, the project end. Criteria Targeted number of households for Home Energy Assessments Number of households expressing an interest in a Home Energy Assessment Number of Home Energy Assessments delivered Number of households with secondary measures installed* Number of households accepting at least 1 item from our Eco Starter Kit Performance 500 (13.3%) 1103 (29.4%) 628 (16.7%) 226 (6%) 796 (21.3%)
* secondary measures include loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, a boiler with heating controls and switching to a different fuel type for primary heating (example, from electrical heating to gas heating).
** Total household number = 3750
Our initial target was to reach 500 homes in Ham & Petersham, and take them through a home energy assessment process. We quickly discovered that we were going to be more successful, eventually receiving expressions of interest from 1103 households, and delivering almost 800 home energy assessments by March 2012.
At the time this report was written 628 assessments had been completed. Since March 2012 a few extra households were brought into the scheme, due to some remaining funding or were still waiting for assessments when this report was written. Their data is excluded due to being
unavailable at the time of report writing. The number of households does not significantly affect the data shown below (and would, in any case, show the project to be marginally more successful). It is clear from the table that we reached twice as many households as originally targeted. A total of 796 households accepted some kind of “primary measure” – a device or something simple from our Eco Starter Kit. And a little under one third of the total households installed a “secondary measure” like loft insulation or cavity wall insulation.
6.2 Eco Starter Kit measures
In addition to offering measures such as insulation, the Home Energy Assessment also distributed an “Eco Starter Kit” (see Appendix 10 for more detail). Residents could pick and choose which of the measures they wanted from the full kit.
Take up of environmental measures in participating households 52.9% 32.2% 35.0% 53.9% 67.7% 84.8% 68.2% 84.2% 48.8% 57.2% 57.6% 40.1% 36.4% 88.0% 60.9% 0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0% Radia tor Pa nels Ener gy m eter Re-U sabl e Bag No Ju nk M ail St icker Stan dby Sa ver Low energ y lig htbu lbs Draugh t proof stick y stri p Cycle Map Showe r He ad Drau ght p roof ing d oor b rush Tap Aerat ros Save a F lush Drau ght pr oof le tterb ox Eco S how er tim er Hot W ater Jack et Measure type % of hous ehol d s
As the chart shows, radiator panels, energy meters and reusable bags proved very popular, closely followed by ‘no junk mail’ stickers, appliance standby savers and low energy light bulbs. (Appendix 6 shows that radiator panels prove highly popular in other schemes in the borough.)
The least popular items were the Hot Water Jacket, Eco Shower Timer, Save A Flush device and Draught Proof device for letter boxes. We have no statistically significant data on why these were less popular; however informal feedback suggests the following:
o Many households have no hot water tank, relying on a combi-boiler for direct heating. Those with hot water tanks have foam insulation already.
o Shower timers represent a difficult behaviour change, as they ask people to reduce their time in an activity linked with both hygiene and comfort / luxury – a nice, hot shower. o Save-a-flush devices make some people think toilets won’t clear properly, again
challenging feelings of hygiene (although the popularity was markedly different in another part of the borough, see Appendix 6); and
o Letter box draught proofing may not be needed for many houses which have recently replaced doors or installed similar devices already.
6.3 Street Champions and take up
We measured how many households registered with the scheme per street, and compared the number of registrations for streets with and without Street Champions.
When we look at the streets we reached in the two wards, we see a marked effect from those that Street Champions visited.
In streets with a Street Champion, an average of 9.7 households signed up. There is a clear signal here: a Street Champion helps boost household participation. This underlines the importance of the community in delivering projects like this.
6.4 School, community and business measures
Although our primary focus was improving domestic energy use, we also focused on improving the affordable warmth and energy efficiency of community facilities.
a. Schools
Solar PV panels were placed on four of our schools, as a result of the Green Streets programme, and a solar thermal system on one other. We also facilitated installation of lighting upgrades with automatic sensors in suitable schools.
b. Small businesses
Following a green business assessment, lighting improvements were the most popular measure, to make lighting more efficient, with 5 local businesses provided with LED lighting. After that, draught proofing proved popular.
Street Champion effect
Average number of households signing up to LCZ per street
7.1 (no Street Champion) 9.7 (with Street Champion)
c. Community buildings
This category includes buildings like Scout huts, churches and community halls.
Like the domestic properties, radiator panels proved very popular, with over 200 distributed and fitted. Draught proofing maintained its popularity with over 100 measures (like door brushes) distributed, while 45 lagging sections for hot water pipes were installed.
More complex measures like new lighting and automatic sensors, and timers for water heaters & coolers were installed in 6 community buildings.
6.5 Anticipated CO2 and financial savings among LCZ participants
Building type Number of measures installed Total tCO2 saved/pa Baseline Percentage saved Total £/pa saved Domestic 10,476 728 2,468 29.49% £96,392 School 336 48.5 841 5.77% £11,560 Business 376 21.2 155 13.66% £7,676 Community 570 9.8 863 1.13% £6,382 Total 11,758 807.4 tonnes 4,327 tonnes 18.66% £122,011
Note: financial savings are based on 2011 energy prices at time of installation and do not include income from the Feed In Tariff.
By the end of March 2012 the project is predicted to achieve a financial saving of over £120,000 per year for the area from energy bills. With >£96k of this saving coming from domestic properties, it represents a greater than £100 average saving per participating household.
6.6 Diversity and inclusion data
A breakdown of diversity information is included in Appendix 4. 6.7 Financing
We intended to establish an energy bank to discount more expensive energy efficiency measures, and give loans secured on residents’ properties. So how did we do?
a. Energy bank and loan scheme
Unfortunately the costs of setting up a community loan scheme proved too expensive following the worsening recession. By the time our project had started maturing, there were also indications that the government was going to establish the Green Deal, which provides a very similar financing mechanism for householders.
b. Grants
We were able to establish a grant scheme. Over the course of the project we gave out £15,000 in grants to the LCZ. These helped pay for:
o Loft clearance for a small number of domestic properties so they could have insulation fitted o Draught proofing
o Training for Street Champions in how to engage the community and talk about energy efficiency issues
o Cavity and loft insulation of community buildings
o Grants to community buildings for lighting, energy management and draught proofing c. A community reward scheme where residents would receive tokens to donate to
schools and community organisations.
The community reward scheme wasn’t established due to funding changes. London Sustainability Exchange were due to run our community volunteer scheme. However changes to London
Councils’ funding meant LSx had to withdraw from the Ham & Petersham LCZ. The knock-on effect was that we needed to keep our resident Street Champions Coordinator in post for longer. In 2011 the LCZ Steering Group agreed to divert the community reward scheme fund into two other outcomes. First, to keep our Street Champions Coordinator in post longer than anticipated, which proved highly successful in embedding the volunteers into the community. And second, the funds were used to perform energy audits of community buildings and subsidise installation of measures.
7.0 Barriers
a. UK Planning Regulations
The Energy Company Obligation, enacted along with the Green Deal in October 2012 as part of the Energy Act 2011, has a specific funding mechanism for solid wall insulation.
During the LCZ project, a specific case of solid wall insulation showed us that there are significant barriers for householders in installing this technology. Although national Planning regulations exist for good reason, the requirements for gaining permitted development approval / planning consent for solid wall insulation is, for householders, a complicated matter. It is highly likely that many people will be put off, due to the cost of arranging building plans and paying for planning consent, on top of the hassle of understanding the issue and arranging legal requirements. This is
discussed in more detail in Lessons Learned and Appendix 5.
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b. Parking
Service providers, such as insulation installers, need good access to properties. Parking controls are a barrier to efficient service delivery for installers; however they do not stop the service being delivered.
c. Loft access
A significant issue for loft insulation installation is ensuring lofts are clear when installers arrive. Many lofts are used for storage and rarely cleared. This affects both access to the loft to install, and the amount of floor space left over at the end for householders to store items once again. We had informal feedback from our partner organisations that this was an issue in the area, however we did not undertake any formal data collection to measure the extent of the problem. d. Technical knowledge
Feedback from British Gas and Street Champions shows that many people simply don’t know what kind of walls they have, how to read meters or how to use heating controls.
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e. Street Champions
Some Street Champions reported a lack of confidence in passing on their new knowledge about a subject to their neighbours. Undoubtedly some of this is the natural nerves that people have when undertaking a new venture, where they are suddenly in a position of authority with their peer group. However it is worth noting that even following training there was some lack of confidence, and that this can be a barrier to being a successful Street Champion.
f. Cost
While the Eco Starter Kit materials were free, some of our offer required the resident to make a financial contribution.
The size of the financial contribution, especially for boiler replacements and solid wall insulation, greatly affected take-up. When the level of part-funding rose to £1000 (or equivalent), more households chose to change their boilers or look into solid wall insulation.
However, there still remained a barrier for boilers, where some householders believed that if their boiler was working (that is, not breaking down) that it was “efficient enough”, and did not need replacing, regardless of age.
8.0 Lessons learned a. Resources & partnership
The council’s resources to deliver the scheme totalled around 1.6 FTE per full year of
implementation, comprising 1 FTE for the Low Carbon Zone Coordinator and around 0.6 FTE in project support from the remainder of the Sustainability Team. Due to changes in capacity of the team, this was not deliverable for the duration of the project.
The Low Carbon Zone Coordinator in practice gave more than 1 FTE of effort, and it is likely that the role could have used around 0.5 FTE of dedicated admin support to deliver such a large project. It’s a testament to the officer in role at the time that the project was still successful.
Similar, future projects need adequate officer support in place, and should properly cost the project management requirement.
Additionally, the project also suffered from regional funding cuts affecting partner organisations. The proactive role of the Low Carbon Zone Steering Group, comprised of council, community and delivery partners, was fundamental in steering a way through this loss of project resource. It is important that this cross-organisational method of delivering projects is noted for future work. However, while funding affected our partnerships, this project was particularly good for the council’s Sustainability Team in learning how to work in partnership.
Compared to other council functions, like Planning, Education or Social Care, Sustainability Teams are still relatively new. Having undertaken a project of this size, and worked with community
organisations like SWLEN and HUG, as well as regional bodies like the GLA and LSx and large corporates like British Gas, we now have an increased capacity for delivering more ambitious projects in future.
The team has a better understanding of working with in-house resources like Legal & Procurement, as well as fostering and delivering combined goals with external organisations.
b. Solid wall insulation
As mentioned in the Barriers section, we have a lot to learn about how we can facilitate installation of solid wall insulation in the borough. Richmond has over 70 Conservation areas and there is an understandable desire within the community and the council to preserve the look and feel of this corner of London, while also meeting the council’s Community Plan aspirations and regional and national targets for CO2 reduction.
We had a case of failed solid wall installation in the LCZ, which highlighted many issues. While many of these were outside the council’s control, stemming from the deadline to funding and the imminent cessation of the project, along with some delays with a partner organisation, it served as an important lesson for future work.
Around one third of homes in the UK are solid wall. There are no definitive figures for Richmond, however given the age of the housing stock and small amounts of data from areas like Whitton (see Appendix 6) we believe our borough housing is about 50% solid wall construction. To ensure we can facilitate the insulation of our housing stock to modern, energy efficient standards, we need:
o where it is,
o greater understanding within the council of the types of solid wall insulation and how they can be used to preserve and enhance the borough’s look or heritage properties, and o to develop our response to planning applications in respect of solid wall insulation. c. Thermal imaging and scheme take-up
Our marketing of the scheme was greatly helped by three strands of work:
First, the Street Champions, where our evidence shows us that more households per street joined up where there was a Street Champion present and talking to their neighbours (see 6.3). All communities have untapped resources. While this is not a lesson learned for any local authority, the specific form of help, and the skills mix and people within our borough was a particular learning point for Richmond. It is always worth repeating that any council must form partnerships with its community, and the learning only comes from direct engagement and involvement, for mutual benefit.
Second, receiving feedback from Street Champions on our initial mail out, and then sending out reminder letters about the LCZ and including an application form.
And third, providing householders with thermal images of their houses – pictures with false colouring to show where most heat was being lost – proved highly popular. Visualisation has proved an excellent way of making energy waste ‘real’, of bridging the gap between abstract ideas and tangibility. We want to press this point strongly.
This picture shows several apartment blocks and a row of houses in Ham & Petersham. The black, turquoise and purple areas are very cold (night sky, trees and grass). The buildings are markedly different. While their green areas are relatively cool, areas in yellow, orange and red are very warm and losing the most heat. These are the priority areas to tackle for insulation and draught proofing. d. Geography
Feedback from our LCZ and the others across London, and from the similar Green Streets programme which was run nationally, and was a part of our LCZ work (see Appendix 7), shows that all schemes benefited from taking place in a defined geographical area.
Focusing on a defined community allows people to recognise the attention being given to them, and greatly assists in the development of a community identity and support role in reference to the low carbon work. Communities become proud of their achievements for their own sake.
e. Community facilities
The LCZ included communal facilities and buildings within its work, to ensure that the community approach was fully inclusive: not just the people who make up the community, but also the institutions, facilities and buildings that help stitch together its fabric.
There was significant appreciation from householders and Street Champions that community facilities such as schools and churches had been included. However, there was a longer lead-in time to bringing them on board and delivering any work, due simply to the project aims having to be discussed at management level, agreed, and resources allocated. This is natural and
understandable. It would help if future projects targeted community facilities early to help phasing delivery and inspire individuals.
f. Heating controls
Many social housing properties have up to date boilers but need improved understanding of their controls. Additionally, home energy assessors (HEAs) identified many people who didn’t
understand their heating controls. This finding is consistent with the similar RE:NEW scheme run in the Whitton area of the borough (see Appendix 6).
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Considering the large amount of energy that can be saved from
learning how to control heating more precisely, it may be useful to build this into future community workshops.
g. Boilers
The high capital cost of changing boilers meant large incentives were needed. We noted a significant increase in uptake when grants were raised to £1000.
However, we received early feedback that British Gas quotations were higher than smaller local firms. It’s important that residents receive the most competitive quote to stimulate a move to more efficient technology. High quotations are a barrier to upgrading boilers or switching from electric to gas heating.
We also learned that residents feel if a boiler is working, that is, there haven’t been any
breakdowns, then it is seen to be “efficient enough”. This is undoubtedly due to efficiency being invisible – there is no boiler-mounted display showing how efficiently gas is being burned. As we learned from Thermal Imaging, making fuel efficiency visible greatly improves perception of it as an issue.
h. Fuel Switch
Very few people have electrical heating, less than 3%. Although there are significant benefits to switching heating fuel type, and we offered a £650 grant, there was no uptake. The capital costs were seen as too high, the disruption too much, and the benefits weren’t clear enough.
i. Financing
9
Financing was only useful when it reached a figure that residents felt was substantial. We found that a £650 grant wasn’t enough to influence people to switch their heating fuel from electricity to gas. And for people already with gas boilers, it was only when the grant reached £1000 that they felt it was worthwhile to upgrade their boiler and an adequate discount against the proposed costs. The high capital cost of replacing heating systems is a significant barrier to upgrading or switching heating systems.
Additionally, some residents gained alternative installation quotes to the ones offered by British Gas, and felt quite strongly that British Gas’s costs were too high. This may have put off many other potential upgrades or switches.
It is essential for future projects that residents are free to access the most competitive quote on the market, and that discounts are sufficient to stimulate action.
j. Street Champions feedback
Our Street Champions were crucial to the project’s success. We talked with them about their experiences of becoming Street Champions and trying to engage the community. The lessons we learned from them are:
1. The Ham United Group was key to recruiting Street Champions and its profile in the community lent legitimacy to the project.
2. Some were put off by the initial delay between sign up and action. It’s important to ensure that the volunteer scheme is launched when all other factors are in place and ready to run. 3. Training was important for many, especially in door knocking. It also helped that they door
knocked and took thermal images of houses in groups to gain confidence.
4. Once they grew into their role, volunteers were more motivated when they were able to decide what extra training they wanted.
5. People have different learning styles. Project partners ran practical workshops to induct Street Champions, but this didn’t address those who are theoretical or reflective learners and who would’ve preferred written information.
6. Having said that, all Street Champions were positive about the value of the organised sessions. They allowed the Champions to make changes to their own homes first and talk knowledgeably to others.
7. To reach residents it was essential for Street Champions to use a mixture of approaches - door knocking, visualisation of the issue (thermal imaging) and having stalls at community hubs, like schools.
8. Inevitable there was a drop-out rate from the initial sign up to be a Street Champion. There may be benefit in over-recruiting in the early stages so that natural drop-out brings the number of volunteers to a desired number.
9. A volunteer coordinator was essential to keep the Street Champions going. 10. Street Champion motivation improved by:
a. having control of the scheme;
b. knowing it was a geographically / locally focused scheme;
c. having regular and predictable contact from a Street Champions coordinator. 11. Although only a handful of community facilities came on board, all Street Champions told us
that it was key to success. For example, seeing a well known school go through an energy efficiency process proved inspiring.
8.4 Multiple benefits
The council’s financial contribution and the GLA’s Low Carbon Zones fund has achieved more than just carbon savings.
While reducing CO2 was the principal aim of the work, we can also demonstrate the following:
1. Improvements in warmth and comfort of homes. This will have knock-on benefits for householders in physical health and mental health terms.
2. Greater community cohesion. The Street Champions have acted as a thread tying their communities together. Apart from increasing uptake of assessments in their streets, they have ensured households understand that other people in their immediate vicinity have taken part in the Low Carbon Zone, generating a sense of community.
3. Decreased* energy bills for participants and greater energy security through protection against future increases in energy costs.
4. Additional environmental benefits in schools and through local community activities. A regular bike maintenance workshop and a large scale solar PV installation were supported financially by the LCZ. Whilst Grey Court secondary school developed a community
allotment and farm, and Ham Hydro won a bid to develop a hydro power installation on the Thames. These initiatives have arguably received greater support as a result of the Low Carbon Zone.
(* assuming they maintain their energy use behaviour and respond to increased warmth by regulating their homes’ internal temperatures)
9.0 Recommendations
a. Solid wall insulation and Development Control
With the Green Deal now in operation (see Appendix 5) and its focus on solid wall insulation, it is wise to recommend that our Planning Department develops its institutional knowledge of handling solid wall insulation planning applications / permitted development rights cases, given the number of solid wall properties in the borough. One of the main funding obligations under the forthcoming Energy Companies Obligation is on homes which in insulation terms are hard to treat and have solid walls. There will be a significant amount of pressure placed on England’s housing stock to improve its insulation in this respect.
We have already agreed to develop a written protocol / guidance documentation to help residents decide whether a solid wall insulation planning application is suitable for their property, and to deliver some training for our Planning colleagues in the issue.
b. Thermal imaging
Because thermal imaging of houses really brought the issue to life for many in the LCZ, there is a case to be made for releasing thermal images of the whole borough online, or of direct mailing a thermal image to householders as part of any Green Deal promotion. While the budget, data protection and privacy issues may need to be identified and acted on in accordance with this recommendation, it is certainly clear that visualisation of heat loss is highly effective, and further use of the imagery must be considered.
To aid this, thermal imaging cameras can be made available at local libraries for hire to community groups, to help run their own energy reduction community projects. Workshops can be run to show people how to use the cameras.
c. Recommendations for the LCZ specifically
Everyone interviewed wants to spread the message further in Ham & Petersham, and views it as a long term project. Continuing support from the Council in terms of identifying funding and
maintaining momentum is key.
Based on interviews and a review of behaviour change research available online10, we recommend
that Street Champions focus on a number of core areas to keep the LCZ alive:
o In streets where a number of people have already had assessments, it is important to tell their neighbours what the “new normal” is for their street. Peer pressure and a sense of “being left behind” are important motivating factors. It’s also important that Street Champions don’t spread themselves too thinly: focusing on a limited number of streets to achieve 100% coverage will be easier in the short term, and also give greater weight to influencing slower moving streets later on.
o Workshops on issues arising from this evaluation. Subjects such as boiler / heating control use will be useful. This is a free measure which has the potential to save large amounts of money, energy and carbon.
o Thermal imaging of any remaining properties and ongoing, to demonstrate improvements and build a stock of case studies.
o Identifying ways to visualise heat loss in the home in a manner that all of the community can access.
10 www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528820.200-lets-use-evolution-to-turn-us-green.html
o Disseminating stories about the Low Carbon Zone. Stories are the heart of a community, the thread which binds everyone together. It is essential that there are success stories which are known to everyone, about normal people who have made positive
environmental behaviour changes.
o Gaining feedback from the community on what they want next.
11d. Community facilities
Approach schools, churches, etc. earlier in
projects. Having community facilities on board will act as a motivator for householders, both in terms of developing a “we’re all in it together” feeling and of leadership. Community facilities can act as meeting spaces for householders, who can see changes in action to generate feelings of normality.
e. Community and voluntary groups Working in partnership is necessary to achieve aims of behaviour change around climate change. The Ham United Group and Street Champions volunteers were key to success.
Certainly the Street Champions programme should be extended to include any area which the council intends to make a Low Carbon Zone, or similar.
It may be useful to research the approach other boroughs use to stimulate community action on climate change and other environmental issues. For example, talking to the other LCZs across London, or looking into bodies like Sustainable Merton or the Brent Sustainability Forum, which bring together interested parties and give momentum to community groups.
f. Eco starter kit items
It would be useful when giving out the remaining Eco Starter Kit items to ask people why they might be taking or refusing certain items. This will help identify barriers to changing behaviours or lack of awareness about the utility of particular items.
If we are to order more of these useful products, this kind of market research will be useful to ensure we minimise waste, or have a better understanding of how to distribute them successfully. However it is obvious from the Ham & Petersham scheme and a similar programme in Whitton (see Appendix 6) that radiator panels and low energy lightbulbs are very popular devices, and can be confidently used in future schemes.
11
Conclusions & Next
Steps
10.0 Conclusions & Next Steps
So how well did we achieve our aims and meet our guiding philosophy? Here is a summary of our aims and how we performed.
Intention Performance Achieved?
20% reduction in CO2 emissions Our analysis shows a total reduction across the
Ham & Petersham area of 18.65%
Mostly
Overall improvement in affordable warmth / energy conservation
We estimate a collective reduction in fuel bills of
£122,000 per annum.
Fully
To catalyse action on taking part in the community, acting on climate change and reducing energy use or increasing affordable warmth, resulting in: gradually expanding the
perimeter (widening the boundary) of the zone over time and declaring similar zones in other areas, and developing the capacity to
deliver savings beyond 2012.
As of October 2012 we are implementing a second Street Champions scheme in
Richmond Housing Partnership properties in the Mortlake area of the borough. This will follow the same model as Ham &
Petersham, albeit with significantly lower funding. It will focus on affordable warmth, take up of simple measures like radiator panels and draught proofing and explore attitudes to the Green Deal.
We will continue to support Ham and Petersham Low Carbon Zone both
operationally and strategically through 0.2 FTE of officer time for 1 year, to build capacity in Street Champions and support the zone in securing further funding.
Fully
Engagement was identified as being a key part of this. We wanted to:
use effective marketing and communication
establish a resident champion’s scheme
make energy use more visible and
create visible reminders of the area’s low carbon zone status.
We used mail shots with thermal images of homes, which proved very popular and helped people visualise an “invisible” issue.
Our Street Champions continue to meet and work on new projects, joining the Kingston University Smart Communities project in October 2012.
As stated, the thermal imaging proved both popular and inspirational and we will be using the approach in the Mortlake project mentioned above. Several schools and houses in the area
now have solar panels and some are pressing ahead with refurbishments from low carbon materials. The schools especially are excellent examples of how seriously the area took to the Low Carbon Zone.
Fully
Intention Performance Achieved? We wanted to encourage
residents to use grants, discounts and loans.
We created a scheme which gave
grants/funded discounts of up to £1000 to install more expensive measures like boiler
replacements or solar PV.
Use of community fund in LCZ, (bike workshops etc)..
And we have made available £15k for
community grants to fund low carbon projects across the borough, which will be available for applications from November 2012.
We did not implement the more significant financing scheme we envisaged in our original application, where installation costs could be added as a formal loan scheme / 2nd mortgage
with repayments made from fuel bill savings. However, given the development and
implementation of the Green Deal (see
Appendix 5) and the economic uncertainty local authorities were plunged into post-2009, this was perhaps too ambitious to deliver within the timescales of this project.
Mostly
Show by example exemplify low carbon buildings by funding demonstration homes early on and retrofitting schools and other public buildings and supporting businesses.
We installed solar PV panels on 10 domestic properties using different funding regimes, and on 4 schools – The Russell School (which is also an Eco School), Meadlands Primary, Strathmore Co-Educational Special Day School and Grey Court Secondary School (now
academy), which are highly visible in the community.
Fully
Was our scheme a success? Undoubtedly so. Residents continue to implement energy saving measures across the ward, which will be driving up CO2 reductions for the foreseeable future.
Key to the success of the project was the creation of the Street Champions group, who increased sign-up to the scheme and who have continued to meet after the project has come to an end. Inevitably our interaction with the community on energy issues has thrown up a number of areas on which we can build and instigate further work. These include knowledge gaps (for example, residents not properly understanding how to use their boilers), guidance and process gaps at the council (specifically in relation to guiding residents through planning applications for solid wall insulation) and areas where we can build on positive environmental behaviour change. We have seen a community further strengthened – a Ham and Petersham united, to borrow wording from the residents association which was key to delivery – by including them in planning for the project, and asking them how they felt they could help deliver it. The work has led to lasting changes in the community, and we will be trying to repeat the successes in other areas of the borough.
Next Steps
The long term policy agenda nationally remains the same: reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80%, increase the amount of energy produced renewably and ensure everyone has affordable warmth and is not fuel poor.
In the medium term, the mechanisms for achieving this have changed, with the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation coming into effect in October 2012 (see Appendix 5).
This means some funding streams will dry up, while other funding comes into effect for those least able to pay or in hard-to-treat homes. And the normal financial barriers to making domestic and small business changes to energy efficiency will be removed by the Green Deal.
In the short term, there are a number of steps we are following to ensure we sustain the success of the Low Carbon Zone:
The Ham & Petersham Street Champions have joined a Kingston smart energy project to track usage, and have extended this to residents. They are also continuing to push free insulation offers while they exist.
The Street Champions model helps to overcome misconceptions and barriers to installing energy-saving measures, and we are using the model on Richmond Housing Partnership homes in the Mortlake area between November 2012 and March 2013.
Because installing simple measures, like radiator panels, proves highly popular, we will be offering this to the Mortlake project.
For the rest of the borough, we are developing a small Community Grant scheme to stimulate community action on energy efficiency and affordable warmth.
Partnering with an energy company in the LCZ helped deliver greater improvements than we could have as a council, and we will be looking into this to leverage ECO funding.
Appendix 1 Full housing and population breakdown in Ham & Petersham area Housing
build period Detail Number
% of total
Pre 1920
Many of these are located within the designated conservation areas of Petersham, Ham Common and Ham House and may be statutorily listed buildings or buildings of townscape merit, predominantly Georgian and Victorian.
660 17.6%
1920’s-1930’s private
Private builds limited to the Lauderdale Drive / Arlington Road estate, the south-western part of Ham, Sudbrook Gardens and the Ham Parade shops / flats.
350 9.3%
Late 1930’s – mid 1950’s
There were 970 traditional two storey council houses built over five estates, immediately before and after WWII. Only those built post-war benefit from cavity walls. Many are now privately owned.
970 25.9%
Parkleys estate mid 1950’s
The innovative landscaped SPAN Parkleys estate is now a conservation area and statutorily listed. The construction with large areas of glazing and flat roofs presents particular
problems in bringing up to current energy efficiency standards.
180 4.8%
Other private 1950’s- 1970’s
Dispersed around the area, many forming short culs-de-sac in
the grounds of large houses. 320 8.5%
Ham Close 1960’s
Consisting of nine 5-storey blocks walk up and three 3-4 storey blocks with balcony access. Together with the Ham Street shops / flats these account for 220 homes but the method of building construction and tenure mix may make retrofitting challenging.
220 5.9%
Wates estate mid 1960’s
The private Wates estate built in the mid 1960s on predominantly reclaimed land from the former gravel pits constitutes 750 homes and 20% of the total stock. With solid flank walls, extensive glazing and trussed rafter roofs the construction may prove difficult to retrofit successfully.
750 20.0%
1980’s – 2010
From 1980 onwards development has been limited with Locksmead being the largest estate and a number of smaller infill developments scattered throughout the area. Only a very few homes built in the last 5 years will achieve acceptable energy efficiency ratings.
200 5.3%
Other
(unknown) 100 2.7%
Total 3750
Appendix 2 Original budget for LCZ
Budget
Please set out budgets for the project from local authority and other partner organisations. Please indicate whether this resource is committed or proposed. This should exclude funding from the GLA which is covered in section 3b
2009/10 (£) 2010/11 (£) 2011/12 (£) Additional information Local authority - Muse book - Communications and Marketing - Improvements to public buildings in area: - Energy efficiency - Renewables - Loans / 2nd Mortgages - Business support £20,000 £2,000 £2,000 £25,000 £30,000 £20,000 £50,000 £1,000 £20,000 £25,000 - Committed Committed Committed Committed Committed Committed Partner 1: British Gas
- CERT Funding - Audit - Starter Kit - Measures - LCBP Phase 2 - Green Streets - British Gas - LCBP Phase 2 £5,000 £24,500 £30,000 £63,000 £100,000 £83,000 Committed Proposed Proposed Partner 2: LSx - Communications and Marketing £20,000 Committed TOTAL £22,000 £315,500 (+183,000)
Appendix 3 Anticipated spend for project
3b. Seed funding of £50k for each LCZ in 2009-10 will be followed by between
£150k and £350k for each LCZ between 2010-12. Please use the table below to
indicate how would you make use of this funding.
Resource or project requirement £ 2009 - 2010 (max £50k) £ 2010 - 2012 (£150-350k) Additional information LCZ Co-ordinator (1xFTE) £10,000 £67,500
Funding for full time programme co-ordinator from
Sept. 09 – June 2012
Handy Help £21,000 Practical support
Demonstration buildings £10,000 Demonstration buildings will be accessible to the public
Hybrolights £30,000 Renewable street lighting
Communications and
Marketing £15,000 £40,000
Develop toolkit and mobile interactive display
Thermal imaging £20,000 Thermal images to engage residents
Starter Kit £21,000 Basic measures
Energy audits £5,000 £18,500
Survey and report informs households where they can
save energy.
Subsidies £40,000 Financial incentive
It-pays-to-save energy
bank £18,500 Financial incentive
Community rewards £20,000 Financial incentive
VCS capacity building £10,000 Support to build capacity within community
Renewable energy
scheme - Feasibility £40,000
Feasibility work to explore renewable energy schemes
3b. Seed funding of £50k for each LCZ in 2009-10 will be followed by between
£150k and £350k for each LCZ between 2010-12. Please use the table below to
indicate how would you make use of this funding.
Resource or project requirement £ 2009 - 2010 (max £50k) £ 2010 - 2012 (£150-350k) Additional information 4% contingency £13,500 TOTAL £50,000 £350,000
Appendix 4 Diversity data
It is important to look at the diversity data associated with the Low Carbon Zone for a number of reasons. The first reason is to ensure that we reached all sections of our population, to establish if everyone had an equal opportunity to participate. And secondly, to identify any patterns for future marketing of similar schemes.
Ethnicity
The LCZ zone was accessed by all sections of the community in an almost identical ethnicity split to the 2001 Census. 3.51% 4.05% 1.38% 1.43% 2.71% 1.67% 2.52% 3.10% 89.87% 89.76% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% % Asian or Asian British Black or Black British
Mixed Other Ethnic background White Ethnicity Applicants by ethnicity Census 2001 LCZ Applicants Age
Comparing the age of applicants to the expected age breakdown suggested by the 2001 Census, we see a difference (see chart below).
There is a greater proportion of applicants in the 65+ and 50-64 age groups than in the 31-49 age groups. This may represent a greater proportion of home owners and people interested in
controlling their household budget by reducing energy consumption. More research is needed, and we may need to look at our marketing efforts to ensure they are suitable for all age ranges.
0.00% 46.00% 26.62% 27.39% 0.00% 35.40% 29.19% 35.40% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Census 2001 LCZ Applicants Applicants by age 65+ 50-64 31-49 16-30 Gender
There was a rough 60:40 split towards women making applications. It would be useful to understand why.
LCZ applicants by gender split
41.1%
58.9%
Male Female
Appendix 5 The Green Deal
The Green Deal is the coalition government’s new approach to reducing the financial barriers to energy conservation, micro-generation and affordable warmth installations. It is described on the Energy Saving Trust’s website here:
www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Take-action/Find-a-grant/Green-Deal-and-Energy-Company-Obligation-ECO
The Green Deal is accompanied by an Energy Company Obligation (shortened to ECO). As the name suggests, larger energy companies now have an obligation to help those least able to pay or in the hardest to treat homes with improving their energy efficiency and affordable warmth.
There are three obligation strands. The Carbon Saving Obligation may have significant implications for the borough. The schemes, sourced from
www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Take-action/Find-a-grant/Green-Deal-and-Energy-Company-Obligation-ECO are:
“Affordable Warmth Obligation
To provide free heating and hot water saving measures, insulation, glazing and micro-generation technologies (except PV) to low-income and vulnerable households.
The eligibility criteria for this means-tested scheme are still being finalised. Social housing tenants are not eligible for the affordable warmth element of ECO.
Carbon Saving Obligation
To provide funding to insulate solid-walled properties (internal and external wall insulation) and those with ‘hard-to-treat’ cavity walls.
This is not means-tested but will be used in conjunction with the Green Deal. This is because the cost for these measures is still relatively high, so they do not meet the Golden Rule.
Carbon Saving Communities Obligation
To provide free insulation and glazing measures to people living in the bottom 15% of the UK's most deprived areas. It is expected that this element of ECO will particularly benefit the social housing sector.
Through ECO, the government aims to help 230,000 low-income households or those in low-income areas. Of the expected investment by suppliers of £1.3bn per year, there will be a 75:25 split between the carbon and affordable warmth obligations.”
Note the focus of the Carbon Saving Obligation to provide funds to insulate solid-walled properties (either internally or externally). Richmond has a high proportion of solid walled properties. Data
from Whitton ward (see Appendix 6) shows that it might be has high as 75% of properties in some areas, with up to 12% of residents in such homes interested in insulating them.
Solid wall insulation is not common at the moment, but with a specific push from energy companies to deliver it, and a high proportion of such properties in the borough and interest in it, it is clear that we need to prepare for a change in the market.
Appendix 6 Comparison with RE:NEW scheme in Whitton
The GLA funds several schemes to improve energy efficiency and reduce CO2 from homes. The
council benefits from the GLA’s RE:NEW scheme which is focused on the Whitton ward, where data shows a prevalence for fuel poverty.
RE:NEW differs significantly in approach from the LCZ by having no community involvement. Instead households are sent a leaflet and then cold-called if residents haven’t actively followed the leaflet’s contact details/offer. Their house is then surveyed and simple measures are installed. Although the RE:NEW scheme achieves the same in terms of improving affordable warmth, it does not intend to generate any social capital or bring the communities together in the way we see with the LCZ approach.
Quantitative data
The scheme had reached 1593 households directly by door knocking or leafleting the area and waiting for responses.
The following charts give a breakdown of how many measures were distributed, and also shows property details relevant to future planning.
Number of properties with Solid or Cavity walls
Solid, 1186
Cavity, 346
unknown, 49
Timber frame, 12
This chart shows that 74.5% of the properties visited in Whitton ward were solid walled. The national average for solid-walled properties is thought to be around 50%, giving Whitton a much higher-than average amount. This presents us with a significant issue for future energy efficiency measures. The presence of just one Conservation Area in Whitton ward gives a lot of scope for delivering external-wall insulation schemes in the area, giving a useful focus for pilot projects with Providers.
Age of properties visited 1930-49, 1230 Pre1900, 14 1900-29, 70 1950-65, 113 1966-76, 46 1977-81, 30 1982-90, 31 1991-95, 13 post 95, 10 No info, 73
Interestingly, 77.2% of the visited properties date from 1930-49, very close to the 74.5% of solid walled properties. This build approach was common before the 1960s.
Number of households seeking advice on particular topics
Advice Provided - Heating Controls, 662
Advice Provided - Fuel Debt, 171 Advice Provided - Understanding bills, 199 Advice Provided - Changing Supplier, 329 Advice Provided - Changing payment method, 113 Advice Provided - Social
tariff, 162 Advice Provided - DIY
insulation/DP, 108 Advice Provided -
Renewables, 52 Advice Provided - LELs,
420
Advice Provided - Solid wall insulation, 143
Advice Provided - Secondary glazing, 25
Advice Provided - Water meter, 283
Data show that many households were seeking to understand how to use their boilers; an issue also found in Ham & Petersham. Other significant areas of information sought included:
Water meter installation Low energy lighting Changing energy supplier Understanding bills Dealing with fuel debts, and Solid wall insulation
Number of eco measures distributed
Bathroom Tap Aerators, 406
Shower Heads, 931 Shower Timers, 618
Save-a-flushes, 851 Hose trigger gun, 267
TV Powerdowns, 715 PC Powerdowns, 43 VDU, 1232 Lightbulbs, 2510 Radiator panels, 6078 EcoBetas, 4
Kitchen Tap Aerators, 594
Chimney Balloons, 8
HWT Jacket, 16 Letterbox DP, 114
Door DP, 28
As with Ham & Petersham, radiator panels and low energy lightbulbs proved wildly popular. These are very simple measures, cheap to purchase and which save a considerable amount of money from fuel bills.
Draught proofing (“DP” measures) were not so popular in the Whitton RE:NEW project as they were in the Ham & Petersham Low Carbon Zone. This may be because the LCZ had the support of a Handyman scheme to install these simple, cheap and effective measures.
