Homes out in the cold waiting for heat pumps
Family still without hot water after green voucher expires while they wait for new system to be installed
‘I would never have had this work done had it not been for the voucher. The existing system worked absolutely fine’
‘This was a policy made on the hoof without proper consultation’
A HOMEOWNER has been left without heating and hot water for four months after delays in installing a green heat pump meant a £10,000 government voucher expired.
Stefan Clarkson, 46, from Skelbrook, near Doncaster, South Yorks, was awarded a Green Homes Grant to replace his gas boiler in May this year.
The £2billion scheme, which was heavily criticised and has since been scrapped, offered homeowners between £5,000 and £10,000 to install insulation or low-carbon heating as part of the Government’s drive to hit net zero emissions by 2050.
Mr Clarkson removed his boiler on the advice of Government-approved installers in preparation for the work, but was then repeatedly told there were problems installing his new air-source heat pump because of global supply chain issues.
His voucher was renewed once, but expired on Nov 30, before the work could be carried out, and requests for a further extension have been rejected by the Government.
Without the funding, Mr Clarkson is unable to pay for a new heating system, and has been forced to move his family, including his stepson and his 13-yearold daughter, out of their home.
“I would never have had this work done had it not been for the scheme. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it, and the existing system worked absolutely fine, although it wasn’t green and efficient,” he said.
“I’ve got nothing now, no heating at all. I haven’t got the money to put another heating system in. Between the supplier and the green homes scheme, they’ve left me in a total mess.”
Mr Clarkson, who heard about the initiative on TV, said that the experience had “made my life a complete and utter misery from the day I applied for it”.
The Government has since discontinued the scheme, which was criticised as a “slam-dunk fail” by the public accounts committee.
From the start, the initiative attracted complaints about slow, complicated bureaucracy, delays to approvals and payments, a lack of installers, and confusing advice. By the time it was scrapped in March, only 80,000 vouchers out of a possible 600,000 had been issued. Around half of applications were either rejected by the scheme or withdrawn by the homeowner.
Philip Dunne, the Conservative MP and chairman of the environmental audit committee, said that the initiative was “a policy made on the hoof without proper consultation”. The Government has acknowledged that it did not work, blaming poor administration by the US company that ran the scheme.
The UK faces a challenge in decarbonising the country’s poorly insulated housing stock, which accounts for around 20 per cent of emissions.
Some 85 per cent of homes use gas boilers, which the Government wants to see replaced with 600,000 heat pumps a year from 2028.
However, upfront installation costs, and the need for expensive insulation in some cases, risks putting homeowners off switching to the green technology. A new boiler upgrade grant will provide up to £5,000 for heat pumps, which work like a fridge in reverse, for successful applicants next year. But there are concerns that the poor rollout of the Green Homes Grant could affect public confidence in the scheme.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We worked closely with the scheme administrator to encourage as many customers as possible to redeem their vouchers before the scheme closed to support them to get upgrades finished in time.
“While individuals are ultimately responsible for ensuring their green upgrades can be installed on time, there may be some limited and very exceptional cases where the voucher deadline could be extended, and applicants should discuss their case with the scheme administrator.”