As you will see from my previous post, the consultation document is quite large and there’s a lot of reading in it. Over the next few days, I am going to be highlighting a few issues which may be of interest. Please do not hesitate to contact me with your comments or respond to the consultation online.

Today, I am going to highlight some facts about fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is caused by three main factors; household income, cost of fuel and the energy efficiency of the home. A household can move in and out of fuel poverty depending on the variables of these causes, therefore the council and its partners will aim to reduce the incidence of fuel poverty through improving the energy efficiency of homes and maximising household income.

Almost one-third of households in Aberdeenshire are living in fuel poverty. Within the private sector, 30% of all households are living in fuel poverty and although 29% of all social sector households are also in fuel poverty, this has reduced substantially from the previous period mainly due to the number of energy efficient measures carried out. The biggest challenge is to encourage private sector households to carry out energy efficient measures in their own home.