Greener homes could get £100 off council tax bills

HOMEOWNERS could get £100 off their council tax bill if they make their property more energy efficient, under plans from the liberal Democrats.

People will be rewarded for home improvements such as insulating their loft or installing double-glazing or a more efficient boiler. The commitment is set to be in the party’s manifesto for next year’s election and will be announced this week by Energy Secretary Ed Davey.

To qualify for the £100 rebate, a homeowner would have to increase the home’s energy efficiency rating by two bands.

all homes come with an Energy Performance Certificate which rates them on a scale from a to G – with band a the most efficient. Most homes in Britain are assessed in bands D or E.

Mr Davey said the plan would offer both lower energy bills and council tax bills. He said the council tax rebate will ‘make action to end your home’s energy waste a no-brainer’.

The policy would cost taxpayers £300million a year, but Mr Davey said it would help meet Britain’s legallybinding targets to slash carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

Energy bills will be a key battleground in the election, with labour’s Ed Miliband offering a 20-month freeze in energy bills if he wins, and the Conservatives hoping to cut back the green taxes added to household power bills.

Measures which would move a property up by two efficiency levels cost thousands of pounds, but the lib Dems say they offer a good rate of return on energy bills.

Replacing an inefficient boiler and insulating cavity walls costs about £ 4,000, with an average energy bill saving of £200 to £300 a year. Solid wall insulation costs between £5,000 and £10,000, but can save households up to £400 a year on heating bills.

Insulating a loft and installing solar panels costs £6,000 and saves about £200 a year.

Under the lib Dem plans, the £100 will still be able to be claimed even if householders get some of the work done through government loan schemes such as the Green Deal. Mr Davey has been in charge

‘Major new incentive’

of this flagship scheme, which was intended to insulate 14million homes in Britain.

But the scheme, which offers loans to carry out the work, has been criticised for low take-up and offering poor value for money because of high interest rates. While 300,000 people signed up for an initial assessment for efficiency measures by the end of July, only 1,815 installations had been completed.

Mr Davey said: ‘The cheapest way to make rapid progress in cutting our emissions is by saving the energy we now waste.

‘liberal Democrats have already helped many people to save energy and keep their bills down, and we are on track to meet our target of improving the energy efficiency of one million homes, but this major new tax incentive would mean we could go much further in the next parliament.’ a spokesman for Mr Davey added: ‘Britain’s housing stock is very poorly insulated. a lot of Victorian terraced houses, for example, look great and people love the original features, but the insulation is poor and they are left with high energy bills.

‘We are not offering short-term gimmicks. The only way to reduce your energy bill – permanently – is to install insulation. So we hope this deal would encourage people to dig out their Energy Performance Certificate and see if they can reduce the rating.’