Stop Dithering...

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Finally achieved some significant progress on the wood/potting-shed rescue front, having got a door hung just before the rain started again this evening. I elected to do a kind of horse-box two-part barn-door thing, as it was easier and I like them anyway. There's some fettling and obviously a lot of painting to do, but at least it's reasonably watertight in the interim. This is a very old and badly maintained structure - mea culpa - but I felt it better to spend a few quid and some of the time I have in reasonably ample quantity - but you never do know, do you? - in giving the old thing a few more years of use.

Which brings me to solar panels. I can start with a statement that I thought I would never hear myself making in a thousand lifetimes: I find myself in agreement with a bunch of Tory MPs. Apparently, the Conservative Environment Network are putting pressure on the government to legislate that all new-build housing in the UK be fitted with solar panels as standard: something Jane & I and many, many others have argued for over many years. It's such a simple addition to make, and whilst not a total solution to our energy and environmental problems, it can only be a positive contribution towards net-zero.

We are constantly being sent letters here in Fairview Heights, offering us free solar panels under some scheme or other, which sounds like a damned good idea on the surface. The only problem is that the offer of provision of these panels and their concomitant ancillaries is heavily caveated. First, one's household income has to be below a certain, means-tested threshold, and secondly, remedial insulation work has to be carried out to raise one's property's energy rating above yet another threshold; surprise, surprise, by the company making the offer, which raises my suspicions in the first place.

Two things: insisting on a certain level of deprivation before eligibility sounds egalitarian, but it simply doesn't address the fundamental issue that this just needs doing, across the board, by statute if necessary. Secondly, focussing on energy efficiency - particularly with the very much older housing stock we have here in North Wales - is a complete blind: any energy generated by solar has practically net zero environmental impact in use, therefore, the energy rating of the property has little import in the provision equation. Also, the financial thresholds for eligibility are ludicrously low, reducing the target cohort still further. We just need to bite the bullet and do something positive across the board: tempus fugit, with time itself also becoming a very limited resource, as far as the planet's habitability is concerned: from our perspective, anyway...


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