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Steve Brine

Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Winchester

Green Winchester - A new 'Green Deal'

Green Winchester - A new 'Green Deal'

Conservatives ‘Green Deal’ will cut heating bills, cut emissions and create thousands of new jobs. Find out more!

As part of radical plans to move Britain to a low carbon economy, Conservatives have launched a scheme that will give every household in Britain the chance to save money on their heating bills and will help reduce our collective CO2 emissions by taking advantage of a ‘Green Deal’.


Under Conservative plans:

  • Trusted retailers like Marks & Spencer, as well as energy suppliers, social enterprises, local authorities and local businesses, would be entitled to provide energy efficiency improvements to people’s homes using this new allowance and other grants.

  • A household receiving a standard package of measures could expect to see savings of £360 a year on their heating bills, with an energy efficiency provider putting in an initial investment of £1,500.

  • The savings the household achieves from the energy efficiency improvements will be shared between the company providing the energy efficiency improvements and the household. So a household saving £360 a year will need to pay £120 to the provider to repay the £1,500 investment, but can keep the remaining £240 a year for themselves.

  • The Green Deal will open up a new competitive market in energy efficiency services worth at least £2.5 billion a year.

  • The Green Deal will create over 70,000 skilled jobs, including at least 3,500 new ‘Green Apprenticeships’.

  • The Green Deal will also cover harder to treat homes, where energy efficiency improvements are currently difficult to finance.

  • CO2 savings across the country are estimated to be 9.4 million tonnes if the least efficient homes in the UK were brought up to an adequate level, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Greg Clark, said: “Energy efficiency is a triple win for the whole country. It saves money, it saves energy, and its saves our environment. However, the upfront costs have stopped millions of ordinary householders from enjoying these advantages. Our Green Deal will sweep those obstacles away. It will create jobs, fight fuel poverty and cut the country’s carbon footprint.”


How the Green Deal works:

People will be able to access a new scheme in which energy efficiency improvements of up to £6,500 that directly reduce fuel bills and save CO2 emissions can be undertaken immediately at no upfront cost to the householder because the costs are met over the long term through the resulting energy savings made.

  • People will first have an independent assessment of what energy efficiency improvements could be made which would lead to savings in heating bills.

  • They then get an entitlement to have these improvements carried out immediately by a kite-marked installer at no upfront cost.

  • The costs (less any grants available) are repaid over 25 years via the regular electricity bill – a typical cost of £10 a month would save £30 a month on fuel bills.

  • The £6,500 will also be available to make energy efficiency improvements to harder to treat homes, saving both energy and carbon emissions, though not generating as large financial savings.

Trusted retailers like Marks & Spencer, as well as energy suppliers, social enterprises, local authorities and local businesses would all be authorised to deliver the Green Deal to households.

Any measures that are part of the building fabric and can demonstrate a positive payback over 20 years will be eligible for funding under the scheme. The scheme will be privately financed by banks and investment funds. Top-up funding for energy efficiency measures – such as CERT and WarmFront – will be combined with the scheme where available to reduce the cost to households even further.


The problem to be solved:

* Fuel poverty: Last winter, over 5 million households in the UK were living in fuel poverty (fuel poverty is defined as having to spend 10% or more of household income to reach an adequate level of heating).

* Energy price rises: Average domestic duel fuel bills (gas and electricity) have increased by 125% in the last five years – from £572 to as high as £1,287.[2]

* Poor home efficiency levels: UK houses are amongst the least energy efficient in the EU: The government’s Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rates the energy efficiency of dwellings from 1-100 (the higher the better). The average SAP rating in 2008 for private sector houses (which represents 80% of all housing) was SAP 47; the average for social housing was SAP 57.

* Limited, inefficient and expensive energy efficiency measures: Rather than encouraging broader market engagement and scope for competition and innovation, Labour has relied upon schemes such as CERT and Warm Front to meet its energy efficiency targets, which are strictly limited in scale and scope and implemented only by the energy suppliers.


Green Winchester ... is an ongoing campaign run by Steve Brine and the Winchester Conservatives. It is not all about the ozone layer or climate change, it is about the way we live our lives in the 21st Century. Green Winchester launched at The Screen, Winchester where Steve Brine hosted a special screening on Tuesday 27th February 2007 of Al Gore's Oscar winning film An Inconvenient Truth.