The Healthy Homes project is progressing apace, with a planned launch in March.
As we have reported previously, the Healthy Homes initiative came out of a series of meetings last year with Skye Climate Action supporters, community groups and other agencies. The meetings looked at housing, health and the climate emergency in Skye and Lochalsh and what we can do as a community to tackle these issues.
The problem: Our region has the second highest fuel poverty levels in Scotland. The windy, damp climate and poorly insulated, traditional housing mean that many households have difficulty heating their homes affordably and keeping them free of draughts and damp. This leads to ill health and increased costs of living. Energy-wasting homes contribute to the climate crisis. Residents can’t easily find advice and contractors to carry out the work needed to make homes damp- and draught-free and affordable to heat. There aren’t enough trained tradespeople to upgrade and retrofit our homes, and it is difficult and expensive to import materials to our area.
Our response: A small group of people from the green building sector, Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association and Skye Climate Action are working on the first phase of the Healthy Homes project, with input from Highland Council, Highland and Islands Enterprise and Built Environment Smarter Transformation Scotland.
The first phase of the Healthy Homes project will launch in March with an online survey available to all households in Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh (paper copies for those who need them). The survey will gather information on the problem of damp, draughty and energy-wasting homes, and the issues that residents would like to get fixed if they could get contractors to do the work. The survey is anonymous and only takes 10 minutes to complete. There will be a parallel survey for trades and builders to find out the barriers and problems they encounter in doing repairs, renovations and retrofitting.
We want as many people as possible to fill in the household survey to make a strong case for action, that we can take to local and national government and agencies.
We are currently planning the publicity campaign for the launch of the survey and would appreciate help from SCA supporters to get the word out in the following ways:
- Hosting information meetings about the project in your community and gathering people’s experiences and ideas to feed back into the process
- Putting up posters and distributing fliers in your area
- Sharing the link to the Healthy Homes survey in your community newsletter and personal social media accounts
- Distributing and collecting paper copies of the questionnaire
If you can help with any of these tasks, or would like to be involved in another way, please contact us on info@skyeclimateaction.org or anne@skyeclimateaction.org