Last Saturday we kicked of the our Home Energy Efficiency campaign with a quick stall on Upper St. We were giving out free energy saving light bulbs between 12 and 1pm. We got the chance to speak to about 40 local residents about energy efficiency in their homes and hear about the kind of problems they have; from the students how wait up uncomfortably hot on November mornings but they can't turn the heating off to the pensioner who spend all day in the same room to try save gas in case she is hit with huge heating bills.
The council has made some big improvements with the Decent Home programme but many of the residents we spoke were (like over a quarter of people in Islington) living in private rented housing.
The average dwelling in the private sector produces 5.15 tonnes of CO2 per year while Islington council homes that figure is 4.0 tonnes. At the same time almost a quarter of households in private rented housing spend at least one pound in every ten pounds of income on fuel bills.
Our campaign will be targeting these houses to help everyone tackle climate change and energy bills. To find out more, or to help out with the campaign, contact Duncan on 07533 488 935 / duncanfoe [at] gmail.com
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From the anecdotal evidence that I have gathered some private landlords are energy conscious and aware but many others are terrible. I know of one house where is a large gap above the front door but the tenants don't want to complain about it for fear of having their rent increased.
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