Installers in London have said they are experiencing long delays while carrying out work funded by the Green Deal.
The Smart Homes fund, launched last year
and available until 31 March 2015, offered energy efficiency grants to local
residents in the London boroughs of Haringey, Camden, Enfield, Hackney,
Islington and Waltham Forest.
Using funding received through the
government's Green Deal Community Fund, Smart Homes gave local residents in
these areas access to up to £6,000 grants to boost the energy efficiency of
their homes, using measures such as condensing gas boilers and solid wall
insulation. Homeowners first had to have a Green Deal Assessment carried out,
and installers carrying out work as part of the scheme had to be a registered
Green Deal Installer.
However, installers and homeowners taking
part in the scheme said they have had to deal with long delays during the
application process, leading some applicants to give up on getting a new boiler
completely.
Radiance UK, operating in the North London
areas of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Haringey and Harrow, registered as a Green Deal
installer eight months ago. Manager Miriam Finnerty has said she now wonders if
registering was worth the £500 investment.
Becoming a Green Deal installer requires
having a quality management system in place to operate to PAS 2030, the Green
Deal installer standard, and the business must be inspected by a Green Deal
Certification Body.
The firm has five Green Deal projects in
the pipeline, including three installations for Smart Homes customers that
required extensive paperwork. One of Radiance UK's customers waited seven
months to be approved for a grant from the Smart Homes program in order to have
a boiler fitted. Once the work is complete, the installer then has to wait an
additional 30 days for payment.
Ms Finnerty said: "We have three
projects in the Smart Homes program and they're the ones that we're waiting
forever on. Two other projects – one in Harrow and one in Kilburn – using the
Green Deal Home Improvement Fund, have been waiting a long time as well."
A further release of Green Deal funding is
expected later this year.
Read the original article in Heating Ventilation and Pumbing Magazine.
