Category: Environment

The ongoing campaign by Winchesters Liberal Democrats has secured funding for a pilot study, on Park Home insulation and heating efficiency technologies, to be situated in Winchester.

The Winchester MP and Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidates for Winchester and the Meon Valley, Martin Tod and Liz Leffman, launched their Park Homes campaign in October and since then have contacted all Park Home residents within the constituency.

By bringing together National Energy Action and Winchester City Council they have been able to identify appropriate sites and start the ball rolling for a pilot study to get underway. It means that some Park Home residents in Flowerdown Park, Littleton, will soon be benefiting from new technologies aimed at reducing emissions, reducing bills and better insulating their homes.

The aim of the project is to demonstrate that low cost methods are available to help insulate Park Homes so that they may be included in Government schemes. At present Park Homes are classified in such a way that they are excluded from the vast majority of Government assistance to those in fuel poverty, such as Warm Front.

While Mark Oaten has been raising this issue in Parliament through Early Day Motions and in debates, locally discussions were under way to site one of the pilot studies taking place across the country within the Winchester constituency.

Mark Oaten commented:

“This is all about showing the Government that the technologies exist to help Park Home owners the same as any other home owner. Excluding them because of legal technicalities just isn’t fair.

 “I’m pleased to say that there does appear to be some movement from the Governments side but this needs to happen faster. The latest cold snap reminds us all again, if that was needed, just how important it is to be able to afford to heat your home.

 Martin Tod, PPC for Winchester, added:

 “Winchester has one of the highest carbon footprints in the country so ensuring we can all do our bit to change this is vital. At the same time far too many people are still living in fuel poverty.

 “So I am delighted that Winchester has now got the funding to take part in a pilot study for new insulation technologies. Lets hope that the Government sit up and take notice of the results and make the necessary changes to their schemes.

Winchester Liberal Democrats are today launching a campaign to stop Government neglect of park home residents who are currently unable to apply for many of the grants available aimed at helping people pay their heating bills.

Park home residents are particularly likely to live in fuel poverty (spending 10% or more of their disposable income on heating bills). This is because park homes are particularly expensive to heat and up until 2005 insulation standards weren’t included in the British Standard for park homes with 95% of homes built pre 2005.

Furthermore park home residents generally use bottled gas, LPG, to heat their homes which is one of the most expensive forms of heating fuel. With winter fast approaching many residents will again be fearing that it is simply unaffordable to heat their homes.

Within this context the Government treats park homes differently from others so that the main energy efficiency programmes do not actually benefit park home residents. For example most measures under the Government’s fuel poverty programme Warm Front are not suitable for park homes and to date they have not been included under the main part of the suppliers’ obligation, the Carbon Emissions reductions target (CERT).

There are readily available solutions out there which can help park home residents afford to heat their home and reduce their carbon emissions at the same time. These measures include light weight external wall insulation and low carbon technologies such as air source heat pumps.

Fuel Poverty charity National Energy Action has been involved in developing this package of measures and local MP Mark Oaten together with Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary candidates for Winchester, and the Meon Valley, Martin Tod and Liz Leffman, are taking action to raise the issue.

In Parliament Mark has tabled Early Day Motion 2037 which calls on the Government to treat park home residents the same as any other home owner giving them access to the grants that are out there.

Locally Mark, Liz and Martin will be writing to every park home resident within the constituency telling them about the action and encouraging them to sign a petition to be handed into the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Change in the near future.

Finally the Winchester Liberal Democrats are bidding for a National Energy Action group pilot study to be carried out on some of the park homes in Winchester and are hopeful that a site can be identified by the council and a positive announcement can be made soon.

Mark Oaten commented:

“By treating park home residents different from other homeowners the Government is neglecting this group of people and making hating their homes and paying for their heating bills all that more difficult.

“It makes no sense to exclude them from government help that others are entitled to. There are solutions out there for park homes so schemes like Warm Front need to be extended out to include these. With winter fast approaching the government needs to take action now and I’m going to keep up the pressure on this.

Lib Dem PPC for Winchester Martin Tod added:

“Climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and everyone should be getting the help they need to cut how much fuel and energy they use. Many park home owners are elderly, which makes it doubly important that they get the same help as everyone else to keep warm and cut their bills.

Liz Leffman, PPC for the Meon Valley, further commented:

“It is unfair that people living in park homes should be forgotten by the Government in this way. Now more than ever it is important that people, particularly the elderly, are able to insulate their homes effectively and cut down on their heating bills. People living in park homes need help with this in the same way as other people do.

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The full text of the EDM is below:

EDM 2037: PARK HOMES AND FUEL POVERTY

14.10.2009

Oaten, Mark

That this House notes park home residents across the country are more susceptible to fuel poverty; further notes that park homes are not deemed to be dwellings and do not currently benefit from the majority of the Government’s fuel poverty measures such as Warm Front or the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target; welcomes the recent investment in trials to establish the technical feasibility of products to reduce fuel costs in park homes and applauds National Energy Action and others for their work in this area; and calls on the Government to commit to including park homes within fuel poverty and energy efficiency measures as a priority.

Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Winchester, Martin Tod, joined Winchester Friends of the Earth campaigning to fix the food chain on Sunday, October 4th outside the Cathedral Close.

Friends of the Earth are campaigning to get MPs to support an Early Day Motion which will encourage the use of local feed for livestock instead of soya produced by clearing areas of Amazon rainforest.
Over 200 local people signed up to back the campaign.

Martin Tod commented:

“Tackling climate change is one of the most urgent challenges we face – and fixing the way we get food is part of that. Certainly, if we can’t fix the food chain in this parliament, then we need to do it early in the next.

“The impact of livestock farming on climate change varies a lot according to the methods and feeds that farmers use and how far the resulting meat and dairy products have to travel. It makes a real difference to buy locally produced food reared with locally grown feed.

“Most of the farmers I’ve spoken to locally grow their own feed, or are buying their feed locally – and for as much of the year as possible, feed their livestock on good Hampshire grass. It’s this kind of farming we need to encourage, not intensive farming by big agri-business using soya grown by cutting down rainforest.”