Fuel poverty a "major challenge" in Coventry

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Fuel poverty a "major challenge" in Coventry

Postby dutchman » Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:09 pm

Families in Coventry are struggling to keep up with rising fuel bills a meeting has been told

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The percentage of households in fuel poverty in the city is higher than both the West Midlands and national average.

A total of 20,479 households in Coventry are fuel poor, a public health and sport council meeting was told on Monday.

This represents 15.3 percent of all households in the city, but the latest government figures based on data for 2016 show that is higher than both the 11.1 per cent of fuel poor homes in England and 13.7 per cent in the West Midlands.

Our of 326 local authority areas, Coventry is joint 10th in England for the highest levels of fuel poverty.

David Shiner, domestic energy efficiency manager, said fuel poverty “is a major challenge” in Coventry, particularly in the private rented sector.

He added: “Like a lot of other urban areas the private rented sector has the worst levels of fuel poverty.

“That’s a characteristic of people living there, they are typically low income, and secondly we have worse housing conditions in the private rented sector.

“We are doing as much as we can with the resources we have to provide solutions.

“Much of what we do is specifically targeted at householders with health conditions which may be worsened by living in cold housing conditions.”

He said enforcement action can be taken against landlords whose tenants are living in a home with a category one hazard – those which pose a serious and immediate risk to a person’s health and safety.

‘Excess cold’ is the most common hazard in Coventry, Mr Shiner added.

Household’s are fuel poor if fuel costs are above the national average and, were they to spend that amount, would be left with an income below the poverty line.

In 2016, 2.55m households in England were living in fuel poverty.

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