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Energy metering would be a retrograde step
• CONSERVATIVE Councillor Chris Philp, chair of the influential housing and adult social care scrutiny panel at the Town Hall, has argued that there should be more metering in council blocks where there is communal heating.
With energy prices going through the roof, this would be a retrograde step forcing hundreds if not thousands of local tenants – especially those in Gospel Oak – to face higher bills.
While Cllr Philp’s aims might be laudable – he wants to save on energy costs and combat climate change – they are naive.
Taxing the poorest will create much more hardship, especially during winter.
But the latest figures suggest there are currently more than two million households across the United Kingdom that cannot afford to keep adequately warm at a reasonable cost.
As energy prices rise, this number will go up.
Too often green policies are targeted at the well-off, like when they removed door-to-door recycling on estates and extended it in Hampstead.
I wish Town Hall politicians who sound off about green issues would look at how some of their ideas impact on ordinary people.
I’m sure more people will join the fight against climate change if they feel that green issues are not just the preserve of the well-off in the leafier areas of the borough.
CLLR Theo Blackwell
Labour, Regent’s Park Ward
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