No takers for the Government’s Green Deal

The Government launched an initiative called the Green Deal earlier this year, but it appears the public are not interested. Not one household has registered to take part in the scheme, according to a report in the Telegraph this week.

If you are now thinking, what is the Green Deal, then you can read What is the Green Deal? in our Green Living Section, (as ever we try to keep it simple).

In a nutshell the scheme is designed to make our homes more energy efficient without having to pay for work up front, instead the work is carried out by approved contractors who have an arrangement to collect the money back in small increments via your fuel bills.

The idea being that the energy saving will decrease your bills so the energy saving work will ‘pay for itself’. It is worth noting that when your home is assessed for the work the contractor will have to prove that the expected savings will be equal to, or more than the cost of the work, which is known as the ‘Golden Rule’.

These assessments have been available since 1 October prior to the launch of the scheme in January 2013, but the tumbleweed must be blowing through the offices of registered contractors as they wait for customers.

The Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker had to admit that “no assessments have yet been lodged” on the Government’s official register. The shadow minister described the situation as a “shambles”.

So why are people not getting engaged? We would really like to have your thoughts on the Green Deal, which we can then feed this back to Greg Barker.

In our Green Living section you will also find a free energy assessment tool. It is easy to use, you just answer some very simple questions to get a report on what energy saving measures your home could benefit from. This will help you decide if you might benefit from making changes to your property, which may be covered by the Green Deal scheme if you are interested, or they may just be very simple DIY improvements such as improving insulation or even just changing your lightbulbs.