News / Insulation cash
OVER 100 houses in Shetland are set to benefit from £800,000 in funding from the Scottish Government to help improve the standard of home insulation this year.
Shetland Islands Council will receive the money as part of a £60 million fund designed to make homes warmer, more environmentally friendly and cheaper to heat. It is almost twice the £444,000 sum the local authority received in 2013/14.
Households are eligible for a maximum grant of £7,000 meaning a minimum of 116 homes, and potentially more, should benefit from the £812,522 being passed on to Lerwick Town Hall from Holyrood.
Council infrastructure committee chairman Allan Wishart said the SNP government had expected councils to draw in additional funds from energy firms but “they have recognised that energy companies aren’t interested so they have dropped the match funding criteria”.
With over a third of isles householders deemed to be living in “fuel poverty” – defined as spending 10 per cent or more of their income on fuel – local politicans have long been seeking ways of improving the standard of the housing stock to reduce bills.
Housing minister Margaret Burgess said the previously announced scheme would help pay for energy efficiency measures such as solid wall, cavity and loft insulation.
She said the funding would help reduce energy bills and included “specific provision for households in rural areas currently finding it difficult to access the measures”.
Burgess said the SNP government was doing what it could but “only with the full powers of independence can we fully tackle all the causes of fuel poverty”.
She said new schemes in an independent Scotland could reduce energy bills by around five per cent, or around £70 per year.
* Householders interested in knowing more can contact the Scottish Government’s hotline Home Energy Scotland on 0808 808 2282 or by visiting www.homeenergyscotland.org
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