The new financial year has seen some disappointing alterations to the level of CERT funding for solid wall properties . These hard to heat homes are best suited to external insulation to cut bills and emissions and so it is very disappointing to hear that grants for this coming financial year have been reduced by over 40%.

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These grants are provided by the Energy Companies and not by the Government as a lot of people seem to believe and in the current economic climate the decision has been to scale down the grants for the next 12 months.

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This comes just a few months after the last Government’s energy review – Greener Homes Report – revealed that some 7 million solid wall homes need to have wall insulation fitted by 2050 if the UK is to hit its legally binding carbon reduction targets. This equates to around 200,000 homes a year and represents a minimum 10 fold increase on current numbers of insulations carried out per year.

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Given this back drop you would have thought that the low level of grant aid available to private home owners would have been substantially increased to act as an incentive as they do in large parts of Europe .  Even a hardened cynic would not have guessed at a grant cut but that is exactly what is happening.

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