Industry figures have revealed that installations of cavity wall insulation were down by 97 percent in April compared with the same month last year, signalling a blow to the Coalition’s Green Deal scheme.
According to figures from the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency, there were 1,138 cavity wall insulations installed in April 2013, down from 49,650 in April 2012.
The Coalition government has tried to highlight the potential for a national insulation scheme to reduce energy use and prevent household bills from rising over the next decade.
Last year, there was an average of 40,000 installations of cavity wall insulations a month under the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) and the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT). Companies had to insulate a certain number of homes under these schemes over a given period of time, but both ended on 31 December 2012, to be replaced by the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO).
Luciana Berger, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Climate Change, said the fall in installations was a “disaster for our economy”.
“Labour warned nearly a year ago that the number of cavity wall installations would plummet because of structural problems with the Green Deal. The fact this has now became a reality is all the more damaging.”
It is also a blow to small businesses across the country, she warned.
