We recently submitted our responses to two key consultations:
- The City of Edinburgh Council’s Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES)
- The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Bill (HiBB) proposals.
Our headline messages to these authorities might be summarised as:
- Don’t forget maintenance/repairs as a fundamental foundation for energy efficiency,
- Think more about other energy efficiency work than you have, including relatively simple lower-cost, interventions, and remember that major interventions really need professional advice and oversight.
- Recognise the scale of the challenge and the need for – and benefits of – collective working to achieve enough scale and realise many advantages in quality, energy savings, inclusion, health, finance and other areas.
- There seemed to be an over-riding focus on heat networks in the LHEES, with relatively less thought about energy efficiency.
You can read our full final submissions using these links:
We await the next steps from both the Council and Government with keen interest.
Thanks also to those of you who took the trouble to read our thoughts in advance and engage with these consultations to make your own responses.