Your Home Better Customer Research

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) wished to gain insights into issues that might be affecting uptake of their Your Home Better (YHB) programme of support for householders interested in making energy efficiency improvements to their homes.YHB was launched in March 2022, the result of a consortium tender in GMCA for a limited amount of set up costs. Its remit continues to be to provide a retrofit delivery service for householders willing to pay for the works to their homes. This service ranges from carrying out initial surveys according to customer preference and providing support to the customer on their choices of measures through to seeking quotes for works and offering a retrofit co-ordinator and technical support service alongside any works the householder might commission from those contractors. The programme website promotes retrofit through the four Cs: Cost, Cold, Comfort, and Carbon. These relate to financial savings, avoiding cold homes and the associated health implications, achieving more comfortable and stable indoor temperatures, and reducing carbon emissions. The research comprised two stages: an online survey followed by a set of qualitative interviews with a subset of survey respondents. The online survey was emailed to a list of people who had in some way expressed an interest in receiving support or information from Your Home Better, whether via the website or telephone support line.The online survey was launched on 16th June 2023 with a response deadline of 2nd July. Invitations to the survey were sent to 342 people. In order to incentivise participation, respondents were offered the opportunity to be entered into a prize draw to win £50. 46 people responded to the survey and 29 of these were willing to take part in a follow-up interview. All of these were invited to an interview and 11 interviews were subsequently completed. Table 1 gives the dates on which the interviews were conducted.The interviews were conducted as semi-structured conversations based around a topic guide. They included questions on motivations for retrofit, reasons for interest in Your Home Better, their retrofit experiences to date, their plans for the future, and the factors that might deter them from retrofitting their home. We were interested in understanding the decision-making processes that householders follow and understanding the relationship between different categories of barrier, whether financial, social, or practical. This report draws on the interviews to provide an overview of the range of perspectives and experiences

‘I was frightened to put the heating on.’ Evaluating the Changes4Warmth approach to cold homes and mental health

Beat the Cold is currently delivering Changes4Warmth, a Big Lottery funded project in partnership with Changes Health and Wellbeing. It aims to address the fuel poverty of people with mental health needs through offering assistance to mental health service users. This piece of research, funded by the Chesshire Lehmann Fund [link: http://www.chesshire-lehmann.co.uk/], is part of an overall evaluation of this project and an exploration of the relationship between mental health and fuel poverty. The research was co-produced with Beat the Cold and Changes Health and Wellbeing staff and volunteers. Volunteer interviewers received training in research and interviewing, were closely involved with developing the research and interview questions, and carried out the majority of the interviews. The report draws on the interviews to contribute to understandings of the relationship between mental health and wellbeing, cold homes, and the experience of fuel poverty. It looks in particular at the role of home visits carried out by energy advisors and the ways in which these helped to give service users a sense of control over their energy consumption and to access support available to them

Stuck at home in a cold home: the implications of Covid-19 for the fuel poor

Policies to address the impact of Covid-19 on low income energy consumers have rightly focussed on energy bills, particularly in the context of home confinement and increased energy consumption. In the longer term, however, we need policies to improve home energy standards. The evidence shows that higher standards reduce the risk of getting a respiratory illness, improve the health of those already with a respiratory illness, improve the ability of our immune systems to fight off illness and reduce the use of health services

Getting around Leigh: Social research with older and disabled people

There are many reasons for those who make decisions about neighbourhoods to be interested in transport and mobility. People rely on transport provision to get around. Whether crossing the city to get to work or making a quick trip on foot to the local shop, their journeys will be shaped by decisions about a wide range of local issues.Some of these – like speed restrictions, pavement parking, public transport fares and routes – are understood to be ‘transport’ decisions. Other issues, such as anti-social behaviour, the quality of the public realm, and the location of shops and services, may seem like nothing to do with transport but they nevertheless have an impact on how people get around and whether they can access what they need.The public realm, and the social infrastructure it hosts, is tightly bound up with provision for transport and mobility. Cafés, community centres and places of worship are of limited use if people cannot access them, whether that’s because the bus does not go there or because people do not feel safe walking in the local area. Even if a neighbourhood is ‘walkable’, this is only as useful as there are places to walk to. Where traffic flows, how fast it moves, and where it is parked are all factors that shape places and affect how much people want to spend time there.It is for these reasons that the neighbourhood has become a focus for transport planning and, as we will discuss, concepts like Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, 20mph zones, 15-minute neighbourhoods and School Streets have been prominent in public discourse.Transport policy is also of national and international concern. It is a major contributor to environmental issues and these, in turn, impact upon health and social inclusion. At 24%, road transport is the largest sector in terms of UK Greenhouse Gas emissions (Department for Transport, 2022). In relation to air quality in Greater Manchester, transport contributes 65% of nitrogen oxides and 79% of particular matter (Greater Manchester Combined Authority, 2016). The potential for policies enacted at the neighbourhood level to reduce these impacts on the global and local environment is another reason for policy makers to be interested in mobility at this scale.In designing and planning neighbourhoods it is important to think about the difficulties particular groups may face in getting around and our previous research (Larrington-Spencer, Sherriff and Price, 2021) highlighted the importance of understanding the ways in which older and disabled people may find urban environments unwelcoming and difficult to navigate. In this report, we detail research conducted in Greater Manchester, including a case study in Leigh in the Borough of Wigan. Our discussion draws on stakeholder interviews, drop-in workshops in Leigh library, and walkalong interviews with older and disabled residents of Leigh.We begin (Chapter 2) with an exploration of the particular challenges faced by older and disabled people in getting around, and place these within the context of car dependency and neighbourhood approaches to mobility. We then present (Chapter 3) a thematic analysis of our stakeholders interviews. Over the next three chapters, we report our research in Leigh, starting with an overview of the area and the data collection (Chapter 4), discussing the ways in which Leigh has changed and the implications for mobility and social infrastructure (Chapter 5), and considering the factors that shape the extent to which the town facilitates walking and wheeling (Chapter 6). We discuss cross-cutting themes (Chapter 7) and provide a set of recommendations that follow from our research (Chapter 8)

Better Housing Better Health: A qualitative study of energy advice and support in Oxfordshire

The Better Housing Better Health (BHBH) service is provided by the National Energy Foundation (NEF) across Oxfordshire and other locations in the south of England. Delivering advice and support to residents to help them stay warm and healthy in their homes, the service has been running since 2013. In 2022, home visits were introduced into the service with the aim of better supporting residents and tailoring advice more closely to their needs. For this research we have conducted a set of qualitative interviews with 13 householders who have received support from BHBH and with 13 stakeholders who have been involved in the delivery of the service or worked in the wider network of support organisations in Oxfordshire. We have also referred to transcripts from BHBH delivery meetings. These provided a window on the prior development of BHBH, shed light on the challenges faced by the staff team, and helped to inform the design of the interview question guides

Old and Cold: Challenges in the Design of Personalised Thermal Comfort at Home

The link between winter cold and illness is a major health concern because 'cold kills'. Worse still, old and frail older people can feel cold at any time of year. Solutions need to be found to increase thermal comfort. Whilst clothing manufacturers have produced garment solutions for people to enjoy outdoor activities in the cold, there is a gap in our understanding about how to protect frail/older people from becoming chilled and cold at home. To date no evidence exists on the benefit of innovative clothing interventions for keeping older adults warm (and healthy) in the home. Our aim therefore was to first understand the behaviours of older adults at risk of indoor cold, living in different domestic environments. Focus groups/semi-structured interviews were used to identify body regions where old/frail older people feel cold and to learn about their attitudes to traditional and modern fabrics and garments for keeping warm at home. Findings from a funded pilot study (RDSYH, Public Involvement grant) are presented. The body regions most vulnerable to thermal discomfort are trunk and extremities (feet, hands). Given the anxiety, discomfort, pain, reduced activity (including taking to their bed to keep warm in early evening) design/engineering-led solutions for a ‘smart’ warm clothing 'wardrobe' for today’s and tomorrow’s older people are needed. Feedback suggests that older people are open to fresh ideas about garments and technology; important to them being fabric weight. Older people do not, as often thought, wear outdoor clothes (hats, gloves, scarves) indoors, and are not averse to ‘modern’ fabrics and garments. Style remains important to many. These findings provide the first step towards identifying 'candidate' fabric, material and garment designs preferred and acceptable to older people for the next stage of work; development of ‘smart’ personalised thermal comfort solutions for health and wellbeing at home

From Mobike to no bike in Greater Manchester: Using the capabilities approach to explore Europe's first wave of dockless bike share

Globally, bike share schemes are an element of a rapidly changing urban transport landscape. Whilst many docked schemes are now embedded in cities around the world, the recent explosion of dockless systems provides an opportunity to evaluate claims that this form of shared mobility has the potential to alleviate common barriers to cycling, relieve congestion, boost low carbon travel, get people active, and reduce social exclusion. Drawing on a mixed methods study of 2270 online survey respondents and 27 interviews, all living in, working in or visiting Greater Manchester during a trial of dockless bike share, we explore the ways in which the technological, spatial and practical configuration of bike share schemes relate to a city's infrastructure and existing cycling practices. We question assertions that bike share provision necessarily results in increased rates of cycling and enhanced social inclusion. By using a capabilities approach and utlilising the concept of ‘conversion factors’ to describe the differing capacities or opportunities that people have to convert resources at their disposal into ‘capabilities’ or ‘functionings’, we show how the practice of bike sharing can influence a population's propensity to cycle, as well as how bike share interacts with established barriers to cycling. We find that many established barriers to cycling remain relevant, especially environmental factors, and that bike share creates its own additional challenges. We conclude that bike share operators must recognise the role of personal and social conversion factors more explicitly and be sensitive to the social and physical geography of cities, rather than assuming that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is adequate. To do this they should engage more closely with existing bodies, including transport authorities and local authorities, in co-creating bike share systems. Using the capabilities approach enables us to identify ways in which it could be made relevant and accessible to a more diverse population

‘The reduction of fuel poverty may be lost in the rush to decarbonise’: Six research risks at the intersection of fuel poverty, climate change and decarbonisation

As energy justice research develops and becomes increasingly international in reach and perspective, the climate emergency is an important layer of focus. Fuel poverty alleviation, climate change adaptation and decarbonisation are prominent agendas that are often assumed to be complementary and synergistic. Buildings contribute a substantial share of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, and their inhabitants will suffer the impacts of extreme temperatures and an unstable climate. How we move towards low-carbon energy sources and technologies in a way that does not leave vulnerable householders behind and does not perpetuate and deepen inequalities is therefore an essential question for those investigating just transitions to a low-carbon future. By means of a Delphi study with a wide range of researchers and stakeholders, primarily in the UK and engaged with energy justice research and policy internationally, we draw on qualitative interviews to distil a set of six risks that inform the development of a research agenda towards a just transition. These risks relate to the prominence of decarbonisation subsuming fuel poverty or detracting from the need for fuel poverty alleviation; the importance of fuel poverty research anticipating climate impacts; the pitfalls for vulnerable people of a transition to electric heating and other technologies; the potential for renewable energy to be costly and excluding; as well as the need to be mindful of existing inequalities and to be sensitive in our treatment of energy practices