Helping residents tackle climate change

Severn Wye Energy Agency have produced a ‘101 top tips’ to save you energy and money such as:

• Set your heating to turn off a short time before you go to bed or leave the house.
• A thick curtain behind the front door can stop heat escaping.
• Try to reduce your shower time by 30–60 seconds. It’s easy to zone out in the shower, but long showers use a lot of energy.
• Make sure all the lights throughout your home are LED.

If you find yourself struggling to pay your electricity, gas or heating bills, you can contact the Warm and Well service, managed by Severn Wye Energy Agency on behalf of the seven local authorities in South Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire.

Warm and Well offers energy efficiency advice to householders and also administers grant funding to eligible households.

The grants are aimed at residents who:

• Own or privately rent a property with an EPC rating of D, E, F or G
• Have a total household income under £36,000 per year.

You can contact Warm and Well via their website or on 0800 500 3076.

For other energy saving tips and advice you can also visit the Energy Saving Trust.

Furbnow – The Gloucestershire councils of Tewkesbury Borough, Cheltenham Borough, Cotswold District, Forest of Dean, Gloucester and Stroud District have partnered with Furbnow to create a one stop shop for your home energy efficiency upgrades. Furbnow can manage your entire project from start to finish – beginning with an initial assessment of your needs, a paid for home survey to help create your personalised energy plan, through to designing your improvements, selecting and managing their trusted contractors, and ensuring high-quality installation.

Help to Heat – grants for home insulation and heat pumps are available from the government.

Climate change report hub – for case studies with examples of home energy efficiency.

Energy Saving Trust – for finding out more information on renewable technology. Installing renewable energy generation, such as solar panels, in your home will cut your energy bills and your carbon footprint.

Love Food Hate Waste – for great ideas on using up leftovers and more.

Get Composting – for information on subsidised compost bins. Some food waste, such as vegetable peelings can be composted at home. Creating your own compost reduces the amount of food sent for recycling and puts nutrients back into your soil.

Master composters – for composting advice from a county-wide team of volunteers.

Love Your Clothes – for advice on textile repairs.

Repair Cafes – you can also take textiles (and much more) to one of the repair cafes within the borough.

Real reusable nappies – residents can get discounted ‘real’ (reusable) nappies or a £30 voucher towards the cost. –

Gloucestershire Recycles – for a wide range of information on recycling in Gloucestershire

Waste and recycling – to find out about recycling in Tewkesbury borough.

Recycling banks and centres – Wingmoor Farm Household Recycling Centre has a small reuse shop on site. It takes in donated items suitable for reuse and sells them on for a small cost which will go towards the running of the site.

Carshare Gloucestershire – lift-sharing to share the cost of a commute.

Electric Vehicles can help cut your carbon footprint and can save money if the cost of electricity for charging is lower than the cost of petrol or diesel.

EV infrastructure in Tewkesbury – the council has installed charge points in Spring Gardens and Gloucester Road public car park in Tewkesbury, and Back Lane public car park in Winchcombe.

To help residents:

• Low emission vehicles eligible for a grant – the Government offers a grant towards the price of new electric vehicles. Read more about the on the Government’s website.
• Electric Vehicle Chargepoint grant – grants are available to help with the cost of installing a charger at your home.

If you don’t have anywhere to charge an electric vehicle at home, then Gloucestershire County Council are rolling out a programme of on street charge point installations (in addition to public car parks with electric vehicle charging).