Poor Quality Housing has a Social Cost ...
The recently published report by Friends of the Earth, The Health Impacts of Cold Homes and Fuel Poverty, quantifies the social impact of poor quality housing. The headline figures are quite simply shocking.
5,500 avoidable winter deaths are attributable to cold housing, especially amongst the elderly. Although perhaps more surprising is the impact on children and young people, a five-fold increase in the chances of having mental health problems, increased risk of asthma and other respiratory problems.
This highlights the need to find innovative, cost-effective ways to retrofit our existing housing stock. This is not just about saving energy and CO2, it’s about providing our society with homes fit for the 21st Century.
Current estimates indicate there are around 26 MILLION existing homes across the UK that will need some sort of energy intervention to bring them up to meet the standards needed to enable them to cut emissions of green-house gas emissions to reach the impressive 80% below 1990 levels under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target [CERT] by 2050 set in UK law under the Retrofit for The Future programme.
This report helps make the case for retrofit with payback that should not only be measured in terms of energy savings but also in wider economic benefits such as a healthier society and therefore savings for the National Health Service.
See the Friends of the Earth website to read the report in full.
