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Senior industry figures have signed an open letter urging the government to address the issues with the Green Deal, following the release of the first quarterly statistics of the scheme.
While 38,259 households undertook Green Deal Assessments, only 249 have moved to the next stage of the process.
“It is obviously disappointing that more Green Deal assessments have not been turned into finance plans, and it shows just how crucial additional incentives are to drive take up,” says Paul King, Chief Executive of UK-GBC. “But we simply cannot let this fail – retrofitting the UK’s housing stock is too important for reducing energy bills, improving health, creating jobs in the construction sector and avoiding costs of new generating capacity – and no one has a credible alternative.”
Business leaders are urging a consensus between politicians of all parties, the private sector and the public around retrofit, to depoliticise something that simply has to be done. The signatories to the letter include Peter Hindle, general delegate for Saint Gobain UK, John Sinfield, chief executive of Knauf Insulation and Mark Clare, group chief executive of Barratts.
“It will require some tough choices, but it is absolutely in the public and nation’s best interest to address this as a matter of urgency,” says King. “The Green Deal provides an important foundation to build on.”
The letter – addressed to Energy Secretary Ed Davey, Climate Minister Greg Barker and Shadow Climate Minister Luciana Berger – outlines a number of barriers to the uptake of energy efficiency measures through the Green Deal such as the lack of long-term structural incentives, the current interest rate for Green Deal finance and the complexity of the scheme.
