Recently, we had the opportunity to meet with East Hampshire MP Damian Hinds to tell him a bit more about PeCAN and encourage him to help spread awareness about the work we are doing to help the community reduce their carbon footprint.
Trustee Peter Moss and project officer Ruth Scammell sat down with Mr Hinds to explain more about the Petersfield Area Superhomes (PASH) project and the impacts of a whole house retrofit plan. We talked about how we are helping households to reduce their energy use.
We asked Mr Hinds to support us in several ways:
- To work with East Hampshire District Council and provide them with the support they need to help with their climate and environment strategy.
- To help push a consistent approach to government policy around financial support. The stop / start nature of grants and subsidies has been counter-productive for home-owners and suppliers and caused confusion and hesitation.
- To support a change to planning guidelines to simplify things and make it easier for changes to be made to buildings to improve their energy efficiency, particularly in relation to listed buildings and conservation areas.
- To push for cheaper electricity prices relative to gas (or oil) which would encourage more people to switch to electric heating (e.g. heat pumps) for their homes. Currently electricity is approximately 3 times more expensive per unit of energy than gas. But an electric heat pump has a dramatically lower carbon footprint than a gas boiler.
Mr Hinds said: “The work done by PeCAN in helping local residents in and around Petersfield reduce their energy use and their impact on the environment is really valuable.
“We’re fortunate in East Hampshire to have many community groups and organisations, committed to making a difference locally, and I would like to thank the many individuals who give up their time to help make that happen.”