Tackling fuel poverty - periodic report 2021-2024: engagement responses

Community Councils

Respondent: Delting Community Council

Shetland has the largest percentage of fuel poverty in Scotland at above 50% and we pay the highest electricity bills in Scotland. This needs to change and it needs to change quickly.

Respondent: Northmaven Community Council

The Northmaven Community Council fully supports the aims of reducing fuel poverty. However, we feel that there is insufficient understanding of the real challenges faced by communities such as ours which are not only rural but also remote. The cost of heating is higher than on the mainland despite the presence of a large wind farm which is exporting electricity elsewhere that could be used to reduce bills on the island.

The cost of raw materials for insulation and repair is roughly 40% higher due to the cost of carriage. There is also a dearth of trained labour that could quickly make an impact by installing or upgrading insulation or other measures to combat this issue. Some of the solutions such as heat pumps do not sit easily with residents lived perspective where they like fresh air rather than being told to live in a hermetically sealed box and not to open windows.

The cost of upgrading older properties is simply not economic and this is likely to result in properties being removed from the rental market when higher EPC requirements apply as owners will be unwilling or unable to justify the expense of undertaking relevant works. Those works may also interfere with the historic fabric and appearance of the buildings. That will contribute to a lack of housing as well as fuel poverty as rents will increase due to a constrained supply of housing. These matters are interlinked and cannot be ignored.

What is needed first and foremost is an Islands tariff for electricity where the island community is better compensated for the production of electricity which supports a multitude of households elsewhere.

Respondent: Fetlar Community Council

Fetlar is one of the Northern Isles in Shetland, with a current population of 54. We are therefore one of the more remote communities in Scotland.

There are especial difficulties in tackling fuel poverty in remote communities and in the islands. The remoteness contributes to expense (reflecting the additional expense of transportation) and unreliability in terms of delivery of solid and liquid fuel. All types of fuel are more expensive and in some cases delivery of solid and liquid fuel has taken over three months from order to delivery.

The government has launched some helpful and well advertised initiatives in terms of insulation and assistance with installation of greener and cheaper sources of heating. In many cases these schemes are not available in Shetland. We have been unable to ascertain why that is.

If you are able to afford to invest in a new more efficient form of heating from personal funds, the cost will be greater than on mainland Scotland, and there will be an ongoing additional cost for servicing. Any heating engineer coming to Fetlar will have to charge for a day of his time, as he will be unlikely to be able to make any other calls that day.

In respect of both the fuel delivery delay and the waiting time for heating engineers there remains in Shetland (as I suspect there is in the whole of Scotland) a shortage of skilled labour to carry out the work required.

Several homes in Fetlar have benefited from the government grant to install or upgrade insulation. Apart from this we have seen no benefit from the government’s initiatives. In specific reference to question 5 in Annex B we can see no impact on any of the areas listed.

Many houses in Fetlar are traditionally built and have been improved and refurbished over time. The newest house is over thirty years old. Inevitably modern standards have improved energy efficiency vastly, but some of these are hard to retro fit to old properties and extremely expensive.

It is extremely hard to see what action the Scottish Government can take to mitigate fuel poverty for vulnerable households. Additional questions regarding the type of housing they live in when claiming benefit may assist in clarifying whether the housing stock itself is contributing to their situation with additional assistance being offered.