It's been three year mission, to boldy insulate cavities and lofts that have never been insulated before and what a huge success it has been. The headline figures to date are Loft insulation – 41387 homes and Cavity wall insulation 20357 homes. It has been the largest insulation scheme of it's kind ever in the UK. This will rise by a few hundred but we're pretty much at the end of it. We have acheived the previous Labour Government's target of insulating every avalable loft and cavity by 2015 a whole five years early! (Incidentally no plan was ever produced by the last government to acheive this national target)
One particularly gratifying things is to see the parliamentary debate on energy efficiency today to see the Kirklees scheme feature strongly with references to the strong community links by Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker and our own Caroline Lucas MP. The new focus under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Targets legislation is to have a greater a focus on insulation measures what is key is whether the insulation can be installed for free or at the very least with no upfront costs. We have shown in Kirklees that you get 3 times more installations with a free area based insulation scheme than you get with able to pay offers. If you are going to the trouble of knocking on every door in your council areas, as we did with Kirklees Warm Zone, then you want as much take up as possible therefore a free scheme makes perfect sense. Officers have calculated for every £1 that the Council has spent on the scheme a further £4 has been generated in the local economy. An anti-recessionary policy? You bet it is!
It's not quite the end. The Warm Zone may end but the offer of free insulation to Kirklees households continues so those who have somehow been missed will still be able to get their homes insulated. We now have to move onward and carry on driving down carbon emissions with other schemes
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