Helping make a difference to our environment
BOURNEMOUTH, POOLE AND SOUTHAMPTON LANDLORD INSULATION PROJECTS
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 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 £1.3 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 recently won another award this time from NEA, a fuel poverty charity, the 'Footprint' award recognises 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.
We are now shortlisted for the national award, and have our fingers and toes crossed that all our hard work will pay off and we will win.
The prize money is being used to promote the scheme and to create a 'Green Landlord' award in Bournemouth.
If we scoop the national award then we are proposing to install a renewable energy technology on a rental property in Bournemouth too!
We will be monitoring the results 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
The Process
Project History
Contact
Resources for Landlords
Since 2004 in Bournemouth, DEAC have worked with 730 private landlords to insulate 7,500 dwellings, saving 170,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £900,000 on their fuel bills annually, and drawing in £1.6 million of utility funding.
The scheme is now back in Poole and will benefit all private tenants in the area, over the past 3 years we have helped around 60 landlords in Poole insulate around 600 dwellings, and we hope to achieve a great many more this year.
In Southampton to date we have helped around 280 landlords insulate 3300 dwellings, and we are well on our way to 4000.
The highly successful insulation project which started in Bournemouth, has now been taken up by Southampton City Council and Poole Borough Council.
The scheme which started in January 2009 in Southampton is setting out to insulate around 6000 dwellings in the City over the next two and a half years, to improve the energy efficiency of rental property, and reduce fuel poverty and cold, damp living conditions.
In Poole we are carrying on where we left off 2 years ago and are now aiming to help as many tenants as possible to save money, stay warm and help the environment
DEAC is particularly interested to hear from landlords, organisations, social housing providers and charities who house vulnerable people, and those in receipt of benefits and allowances, but the grants are open to all residential rented property regardless of the tenants status.
"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."
We are managing these projects in association with Bournemouth Borough Council, Poole Borough Council and Southampton City Council and the utility companies who are providing funding for a limited time to allow insulation measures to be installed into rented dwellings in these areas.
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, 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.
If you are a Residential Social Landlord, then we will discuss your individual requirements and set up a program of works.
We have worked with around 850 landlords across Dorset now and have insulated around 10,000 dwellings.
We are looking forward to working with many more Landlords in Bournemouth, Poole and Southampton now, 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. We are now underway with Poole Council once again in offering free insulation to all private residential landlords.
If you are a landlord, letting agent or tenant in Bournemouth, Poole or Southampton please contact us for more information on the scheme – yes, it is free and there are no catches so pick up the phone and get in touch while the funding is available.
We are keen to roll the project out in other areas of Dorset and beyond, 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) 469907 or E-mail: peter@deac.co.uk
Articles about the project:
Article about the project on 24dash.com
Resources for Landlords
Help and advice
T: (0800)
975 0166
Or write to us at:
Bob Hann House
Shillito Road,
Parkstone, Poole
DORSET BH12 2BW
Telephone: 01202 469907 E-mail us: info@deac.co.uk
Registered in England No. 4003941 as a not for profit organisation.
Registered office: Bob Hann House, Shillito Road, Parkstone, Poole, DORSET BH12 2BW
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