600 North-West homes heated by inefficient system

The figures emerged at Stormont this week, after the Minister was asked by a UUP MLA to detail the number of homes, broken down by district council area, that are reliant on “the basic electricity supply and storage heaters such as Economy 7 for their sole source of heating”, as well as an update on when the heating systems will be replaced “to reduce the likelihood of fuel poverty.”

The Minister responded by stating that the information requested by Roy Beggs MLA was not available in the requested format, since the Housing Executive does not routinely collect information by district council area, but did supply figures broken down by Housing Executive district office area.

The figures supplied by the Minister show that over 100 homes in Limavady were still being heated by the outdated ‘Economy 7’ system. The area covered by the NIHE office at Waterloo place in Londonderry contains 128 homes with the inefficient heating system, with the equivalent figure for the Collon Terrace office at 212 and the Waterside office at 128.

Nelson McCausland, the Minister of Social Development stated: “The Housing Executive has been implementing a programme to replace electrical heating systems, including Economy 7 systems, with a more efficient heating system and as a result they have reduced the number of their homes with electrical heating systems, including Economy 7, from a peak of 26,000 to the current level of 8,432.”

He also stated: “There are currently 2,851 and 1,131 dwellings with electrical heating systems, including Economy 7, included in the Housing Executive’s heating replacement programmes for 2012/13 and 2013/14 respectively. The number of actual starts will depend on funding and progress with individual scheme designs/approvals.

“Housing Executive tenants in houses and low rise flats are offered gas central heating if situated in a gas supply area and oil central heating if outside a gas supply area. A number of tenants have refused a conversion from electric to oil for economic/affordability reasons. In high rise flats where gas and oil are not feasible new electric heating systems are currently being piloted in South Belfast and Lisburn where initial reaction from tenants has been positive.”

He added: “The Information provided is an Official Statistic. The Production and dissemination of all such Statistics is governed by the Principles and Protocols of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. This is enforced by UK Statistics Authority.”