Government urged to set energy efficiency standard for Private Rented Homes

More than 30 organizations have joined forces in urging the Government to set a minimum energy efficiency standard for private rented homes as part of a wider effort to reduce fuel poverty across the UK.

The group, which includes high-profile such as Shelter, the UK Green Building Council, Age UK, the Energy Saving Trust, the UK GBC (Green Building Council), etc. has argued that the private rented sector (PRS) has the highest proportion (11%) of the most energy inefficient homes (those in EPC Bands F and G), which contributes directly to very high levels of fuel poverty.

This is a particularly serious problem since the private rented sector is a rapidly growing part of the housing market, with 17.5% of the English housing stock (4 million houses) being privately rented. By comparison, less than 2% of social housing is F & G rated.

The group is concerned that unless Band E is specified as mandatory in the regulations, the minimum standard will be virtually unenforceable.

Finally, while the organizations admit that there will clearly need to be some exemptions from the standard (e.g. listed buildings), they also argue that it is important that these are kept to a bare minimum — otherwise the regulations will be too complex to understand and easy to evade.

Implementing extensive energy-saving measures is likely to help home owners reduce their overall bills and also their overall debts to energy suppliers.

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