Report: £9.2bn needed to end fuel poverty

Large-scale governmental investment will be required to lift people out of fuel poverty in the UK, it has been claimed.

A report by the Centre for Sustainable Energy and the Association for the Conservation of Energy indicated that in order to meet targets to end fuel poverty by 2010, £9.2 billion will be required, the Associated Press reports.

Measures such as identifying energy-poor households and installing loft and cavity wall insulation, new heating systems and renewable energy were included in the suggested sum.

However, the centre highlighted that such initiatives were not being undertaken quickly enough.

Ian Preston, spokesperson for the Centre for Sustainable Energy, said: "This study clearly demonstrates that, on current levels of resources, neither the government's own fuel poverty programme or the energy suppliers' own Carbon Emissions Reduction Target schemes support the measures needed in sufficient volumes.

"We're not going far enough, or fast enough."

A household in fuel poverty spends over ten per cent of its income on fuel in order to maintain a "satisfactory heating regime", according to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.