A group of Ealing residents gathered at Acton Market in support of the United for Warm Homes campaign.

Friends of the Earth Ealing are asking local MPs to show their support for the campaign by posting a photo of their homemade 'patchwork quilt' on their social media with the hashtag '#UnitedForWarmHomes'.

The campaign is asking the government to provide:

• Urgent support for people dealing with high energy bills
• A new emergency programme to insulate our heat-leaking homes
• An energy system powered by cheap, green renewables.

As the country faces another winter with high energy bills, the Ealing residents don't believe the government has acted at the scale and speed needed to secure warm homes for all.

Housing makes up nearly a third of all the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. 

In 2006 the UK set out a policy to make all new homes carbon neutral through higher energy efficiency standards and the production of renewable energy. 

However, the scheme was scrapped in 2015 to reduce net regulations on house builders.

In September this year the government launched the Great British Insulation Scheme, but according to fuel poverty charity National Energy Action the scheme would take 190 years to help people living in the most draughty homes in Britain and another 100 years for all fuel-poor homes to be improved.

The House of Commons Committee on Accelerating the Transition from Fossil Fuels and Securing Energy Supplies in January 2023 noted "the lack of acceleration on energy efficiency measures."

It said: "The Government's current fuel poverty target 'to ensure that as many fuel-poor homes as is reasonably practicable achieve a minimum energy efficiency rating of band C, by 2030' is vague and unspecific."

Instead, the committee called for targets to lift 100% of domestic properties by EPC C by 2035.

If a home is EPC C rating it means it's been built using energy-efficient building methods or the home's fabric has been upgraded.

Improving homes to EPC C or above will reduce the UK's reliance on energy imports and cut carbon emissions while delivering a wealth of co-benefits, including warmer homes, improved health outcomes, and a job-creating boost to local tradespeople."

Hundreds of local Friends of the Earth groups around the UK have joined the national campaign which will ramp up in the run up to the 2024 election.

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