This week saw the introduction of yet another incentive to try and attract homeowners to the Green Deal. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey announced that as of June this year, people in England and Wales would be eligible to claim up to £7,600 from the new Grean Deal Home Improvement Fund. This is designed to limit the cost of having any works done.
Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker, said: “The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is another way the government is making it simpler and cheaper for people to stay warm and improve their homes.
“I want households across the country to benefit from more energy efficient homes and reduced bills through the Green Deal, and that is what the new home incentive fund will do.”
One Last Attempt
This is probably the last ditch attempt at making this quite frankly pointless government flagship scheme work. They are using the rather blunt method of giving people even more money in the hope that it suddenly sparks an interest. Unfortunately, the time in which this scheme could have been worth something has now well and truly passed. Poor planning, no funding for public advertisement and launched in one of the worst recession in the history of the UK economy, the Green Deal was never going to work.
Up to press, you can count the number of window installations done via the Green Deal one one hand. Now that truly is pathetic number, given the hard work bodies like the GGF did to get windows included within Green Deal in the first place. However I do believe that there is a probably political motive behind this last ditch attempt to jump start life into the scheme.
As we all know the European Elections are just days away (22nd May) and the main three political parties stand to be dealt a hell of a blow by the smaller, more independent parties, especially UKIP. The main parties will be using these elections as a tester, looking forward to how next year’s general election is going to go. They know it’s not going to be pretty. In all likelihood there probably won’t be a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition next year. This means that whatever government is formed next, they are going to be having a clear out of all the expensive and failed schemes. Green Deal is likely to be one of them. This may be a last attempt to save a Liberal Democrat policy from being shelved.
There has been simply no advantage from Green Deal other than to those running large council contracts doing home renovations. The normal residential market is practically untouched. The Government says it could take 20 years for the scheme to really bed in a become successful. But is a time period of that long workable in a modern age where everything happens so quickly? No.
The Government has also tried to claim that even if new windows and doors don’t see a benefit from Green Deal, at least the awareness of what new windows and doors can do will be increased. Well no, that hasn’t happened either. I’ve not dealt with a single customer that has come and seen me and said “I saw the Green Deal advertised the other week and I’ve come in to buy new windows and doors”.
Remember those Home Information Packs (HIPs) a few years ago? They got scrapped pretty quickly. So will this.
Full Green Deal Coverage
November 2011
>Lenders Could Halt Green Deal
>The Government is working very hard and very quickly to make sure that the Green Deal covers as many areas as possible, and that it's implemented as soon as is viable. Effort which I have [...]
>Green Deal Will Need Massive Public Awareness
>If the Green Deal is to be a success (putting aside my skepticism that it will be dominated by the largest companies in the UK) then it will need to garner the same amount of [...]
>Making A Stand
>There are a lot of 'yes men' in our line of work. Those who say yes to things, but have no intention of following through on their promises.Take FENSA for example. It was alerted to [...]
September 2011
>Potential Green Deal Disaster
>The more you look at the Green Deal, the more you realise that small window companies (which make up a lot of our industry) are going to struggle to be able to take advantage of [...]
>5% VAT For Energy Rated Windows
>Finally, windows and doors look set to be recognized by our Government, by being included in the Green Deal, due to hit our shops October 2012. But this isn't going to be enough to help [...]
August 2011
>Green Deal Bad For The Industry?
>I heard an interesting comment during a meeting with one of our suppliers last week, in which it was mentioned that if the general public find out that windows are set to be included in [...]
