LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Nothing to be proud of in being Europe’s worst for home insulation

Still, it’s nice to know that in Rotherham we have our own unique version of the old saying, “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”. Here we have “Lies, Damn Lies and Clive Phillips”!

This week’s local energy big news was the completion of Hornsea 2, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, hailed as part of the answer to our energy problems.

The trouble is it’s not ours. Although connected to the UK it is owned half by the developers, Orsted, and half by the French investment company, Axa Investments, and therefore, along with what used to be our North Sea Offshore Generation complex but which has been sold by our Conservative government of Britain to foreign investors, it can charge the British public whatever it wishes for the energy it generates despite being the second cheapest form of power, and is therefore no help to our energy costs under our present Government.

Not that we are alone in problems with energy suppliers. The Energy Charter Treaty, to which our government insists we remain a member, has ordered Italy, because of its ban on offshore oil drilling, to pay the company “Rockhopper” £210 million compensation, six times more than the company’s entire investment in the country.

Another example of the fossil fuel industry’s determination to fleece the people of every penny they can extract irrespective of fairness and justice.

Back to our problems, Parliament’s own think tank, the House of Commons Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Commission, has reported that an immediate home insulation upgrade programme is the most cost effective way of reducing our energy costs.

We are currently listed the worst country in Europe for home insulation, with an estimated 19 million homes needing retro fitted insulation to bring them to the required standard.

The report further indicates that this work should be commenced without further delay, and points out that, had this essential upgrading been put in place when prices first started to increase in 2021, then tens of thousands of homes would by now have been completed.

A further problem over which our present government is unable or unwilling to act is sewage pollution, which one report has stated is so bad on the south coast that the French are considering suing us for its spread into their waters.

One difficulty, whilst in office as home secretary Liz Truss slashed the Environmental Authority’s operating budget from almost £12 million down to £7 million, severely restricting its ability to investigate reports of water pollution.

As a result, I read that staff are being told to ignore complaints sent in by the public if they think the incident is no more than category 3, which includes river pollution extending less than three kilometres.

To those who have problems with metrification, three kilometres is the distance from Blackburn Meadows to Rotherham Station, so my condolences to the village of Whiston, but officially the 2019 flooding never happened.

Interesting times,

Charles David Foulstone,      

Rotherham Green Party