Warm Homes

Greens believe that everyone should have a warm, well insulated home, whether they are tenants or home-owners. South Scotland lead candidate Laura Moodie has been helping Clydesdale Housing Association tenants in Thankerton to battle spiralling energy costs.

The residents, many on fixed incomes, reached out to local Greens in a last-ditch effort to improve their homes’ energy efficiency and reduce bills. One resident, Patricia Todd, has been told there won’t be new heating until April 2022. She cites bills as high at £50 per week with the properties relying on 25-year-old electric storage heaters. This despite a promise from the Housing Association that all their properties would meet government-recommended minimum standards by the end of 2020.

As well as supporting residents to access Cold Weather Payments, the Warm Home Discount and other schemes, Laura has written to both Clydesdale Housing Association and South Lanarkshire Council to find out what efforts are being made to access the additional £25m of funding to support improved energy efficiency in social housing secured by the Scottish Greens in last year’s budget.

Laura said; “Stories like Patricia’s are just heartbreaking and a sad indication of the broken system we are living in. While energy-efficient housing is the long-term solution to fuel poverty, thousands of households need immediate help to get through this winter.”