Helping make a difference to our environment
LANDLORD INSULATION PROJECTS
Peter Bywater - Heat Heroes Award.
Another accolade attributed to the Landlord Scheme was recently announced, Peter Bywater our Senior Project Manager has been recognised by NEA (National Energy Action) and Scottish Power as one of 12 people in the country who has made a signifcant contribution in helping those deemed to be in fuel poverty and has been selected to receieve a 'Heat Heroes' award.
The award will be presented to Peter on 8th February 2012 at the House of Commons. www.http://www.nea.org.uk/heat-heroes/
NEA Footprint Award and Carbon Action Network Award for Bournemouth Landlord Scheme
(From Left to right) Peter Bywater - Senior Project Manager at Dorset Energy Advice Centre, Neil Short - Policy Development Manager from Bournemouth Borough Council and Tracy Poole - Bournemouth Landlord posing with Carbon Action Network award.
Bournemouth Borough council were firstly awarded the Carbon Action Network prize for this work, Cllr Peter Charon, Cabinet Member for Housing and procurement said in Apr 09, "I am delighted with this announcement, as Improving our Environment is our top council priority. This award winning scheme helps residents to save energy, sustains our environmentt and supports our economy. The funding provided by energy companies totals over £1.35 million."
More about this award:
http://www.bournemouth.gov.uk/News/press_office/Press_Releases/June_2009/Energy_award.asp
Dorset Energy Advice Centre and Bournemouth Borough Council have won another award this time from NEA, a fuel poverty charity, the 2009-2010 'Footprint' award recognised excellence in combating fuel poverty and reducing carbon dioxide emissions too. The Project Manager Peter Bywater collected the South West regional award from the 'House of Lords' in April 2010.
We then won the overall national award, and went to London to collect this in July 2010. We are extermely proud of our achievement with this flagship project.
The prize money was used to promote the scheme and to create a 'Green Landlord' award in Bournemouth in 2010. This award was given to 3 local landlords in July 2010 at the annual Bournemouth Landlords conference, the winners were Richard Price, Dave Wells and Mike Scott and all were given trophies and framed certificates in recognition of their involvement in the success of the Bournemouth Landlord scheme.
Having won the national award then we were looking to install a renewable energy technology on a rental property in Bournemouth, this has been completed to an HMO property with some 12 letting rooms/flats which are let to vulnerable adults.
Having already successfully instigated a 2 day staggered road closure in Bournemouth, we are now having a single skin extension on another HMO externally clad, where the landlord is paying 50% and Bournemouth Borough Council are paying the other 50% and we will be able to monitor the improvements on this. The building was previously cavity wall and loft insulated where possible under the scheme.
We will be monitoring the results closely with the hope of doing much more in the future.
Read more about the award here:
http://www.nea.org.uk/bournemouth-borough-council-work-with-local-landlords-to-scoop-regional-award
http://www.nea.org.uk/south-west-wins-best-in-britain-for-second-year-running/print
http://utility-compare.co.uk/news/cheaper-gas-and-electricity-for-bournemouth-tenants.html
The Process
Project History
Contact
Resources for Landlords
History of the Bournemouth Landlord Scheme
Since 2004 in Bournemouth, DEAC have worked with 975 private landlords to insulate 9000 dwellings, saving 9500 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £1,300,000 on their fuel bills annually, and drawing in £1.95 million of utility funding.
The scheme is now finishing in Weymouth and Portland and has benefitted over 200 private tenants in the area, over the past 18 months we have helped around 70 landlords in Weymouth and Portland to insulate around 180 dwellings.
In Southampton the scheme is now finished, to date we had helped around 350 landlords insulate 4200 dwellings ."Please note there are discounts for landlords in all areas. Don't forget to visit our services section on the top menu with details about our Energy Performance Certificate service for landlords and letting agents."
The Process
It is a simple process, get in touch, arrange to meet one of our project team on site at your properties, sign a permission letter, supply the names and details of your tenants, allow access for the installers to complete the work, access in some acases for the work to be independantly inspected, sign completion paperwork and take delivery of free low energy light bulbs and power down plugs.
That's it.
You could then find you have then taken advantage of £1000s of professional insulation work for free.
The funding is now very low so apply quickly if you want to benefit from the scheme!
If you are a Residential Social Landlord, then we will discuss your individual requirements and set up a program of works for you.
We are looking forward to working with many more Landlords in Bournemouth and Purbeck, so contact us now on:
0800 975 0166
E-mail:peter@deac.co.uk
Project History
On investigation we found that the wards of Boscombe West, Springbourne, and Wallisdown were amongst the most deprived in the county. A decision was taken to target Boscombe West and Springbourne primarily based on the size of the ward and the type and tenure of the properties in the area, along with what is perceived to be the area with the most social deprivation.
Boscombe West and Springbourne have its own Neighbourhood Management (NM) office which is part of the Governments Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, and is part funded by Government and Bournemouth Borough Council (BBC) to assist in regeneration of the area, it is charged with several areas of responsibility including housing, environmental health and other social issues.
As a starting point the project management team at DEAC wanted to focus a feasibility study (phase 1) on energy debt, fuel payment methods, and barriers to affordable warmth within the ward. We sourced funding to survey around 900 residents in the ward, to extract the necessary data.
The study showed us that a vast number of properties in the ward, some 61% were privately rented properties, and a great many were Houses of multiple occupation (HMO). These were found to be properties that were least likely to have energy efficiency measures applied to them, because of the high capital costs to the landlords and tenants of installing measures such as cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, double glazing and gas central heating.
Existing grants for insulation measures were available through Energy Efficiency Commitment grants (EEC, now called CERT) and through the Governments Warmfront grant, although these often fall some way short of addressing the unique issues involved with HMO properties. The EEC grants provided part funding to carry out cavity wall or loft insulation although there was an issue of who paid the client contribution.
The Warmfront grant and CERT (then EEC) priority group funding are able to fund 100% of the cost of insulation but only for people on qualifying state benefits and allowances, in HMO properties it is rare that everybody in the building is on benefit, and if they are by the time the application process and assessment is complete the tenant may have moved out.
Based on these barriers to insulation, we decided that a fully funded insulation project focused on HMO properties in the private rented sector would be a very worthwhile and effective way of addressing many of the issues of fuel poverty, fuel debt, affordable warmth and energy efficiency in the area.
DEAC had a long standing relationship with the then Dorset Residential Landlords Association (DRLA) which is now the National Landlords Association Dorset Branch (NLA). They had been keen to find a way to fund energy efficiency measures for some time within private rented properties, but had been frustrated by the lack of flexibility in the existing grant mechanisms.
Having overcome some difficult issues regarding access, height of buildings, and parking restrictions we were able to complete the insulation to over 700 dwellings for cavity wall insulation, and also completed several loft insulation jobs, gave away over 3000 low energy light bulbs, and several hot water tank jackets, carbon monoxide detectors and cold alarms. We also sign posted many tenants to Warmfront grants for heating works, and issued energy and condensation advice leaflets to tenants.
Dorset Energy Advice Centre has also been working with Poole Borough Council during the 2007/2008 financial year and we had completed around 600 dwellings in this time, in additon we also completed a further 225 dwellings during the 2010-11 financial year.
We are keen to roll the project out into other areas, and would welcome any enquiries from other local authorities who wish to set up a similar scheme with us.
To contact the landlord team - Call on: (01202) 209416
or e-mail: peter@deac.co.uk
Articles about the project:
Article about the project on 24dash.com
Resources for Landlords