As part of the £650million, thirty year PFI scheme to redevelop Pendleton, residents in high rise blocks were promised `massive reductions' in heating bills by the introduction of the NIBE Exhaust Air Heat Pump in their flats. Yet for most of those who have experienced the system, particularly in Spruce Court and Whitebeam Court, it's had the opposite effect, with many pushed into fuel poverty.
The Salford Star has been reporting on the `heat or eat' horror that has seen residents like Sara Thomson in Spruce Court spending between £20 and £50 a fortnight on energy bills after the NIBE system was installed, compared to £10 previously... "I've got to ask family and friends for food and to help with money" she said "I don't know who to turn to..."
With winter fast approaching and the NIBE money furnace set to fire up once the outside temperature drops to 12degrees, residents are bracing themselves for another period of fuel poverty.
Despite numerous complaints to Pendleton Together, Salford City Council, local councillors and MP Rebecca Long-Bailey, nobody appears to be responding (see previous Salford Star article click here). Now it is being hoped that Angela Rippon's Rip Off Britain will finally force some action after it is aired next Tuesday at 9:15am on BBC One (see here).
The programme has covered the NIBE system's affects on residents around the country previously but this week's episode looks specifically at Salford, before reporting on problems with the NIBE system on a total of 33 developments and estates across the UK. The team asks how it can be that what residents have paid differs so much from what was predicted on the Energy Performance Certificates.
The Salford Star reported in the last print edition* how Pendleton Together was refusing to provide these certificates, or EPCs, to tenants, despite a necessity to do so, and how, when one resident finally got hold of his EPC, he was horrified to discover that his flat energy costs should have been £294 when he was actually paying £750 for six months.
Furthermore, the information on the ECP was wrong, stating that the flat was fitted with an `air sourced heat pump', which is a low or zero carbon system, when in fact the fitted NIBE was an `exhaust air heat pump' which is a high CO2 system.
The Salford Star has seen the official contract between Salford Council and Pendleton Together which states that the Council expects "as a minimum" a quarterly forecast of the performance of the NIBE system. So it must now know whether the NIBE is doubling energy bills or not.
Salford Council has not released this information to tenants, nor are local councillors or the MP, to their shame, responding to any complaints, or seeking to find out the truth about the NIBE system for themselves.
As the national BBC One spotlight points firmly towards Salford, residents are hoping they won't have to suffer another winter of `heat or eat' horror...
Rip Off Britain
BBC One
Tuesday 6th October 9:15am
For a four page in-depth feature on the NIBE system and Pendleton Together's refurbishment of the towerblocks, with loads of quotes from residents, see the Salford Star print edition: Pendleton Untogether click here
In August, Salford and Eccles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey was praising Pendleton Together as she visited completed flats at Lombardy Court... "I'm hugely impressed with the refurbishment work which Pendleton Together has delivered at Lombardy Court" she said, adding "Local people deserve high quality homes to live in which meet their health, care and wellbeing requirements - and Lombardy Court now does exactly that. It is yet further evidence of the ongoing transformation of this part of Salford being delivered by Pendleton Together."
Residents of Spruce Court, Whitebeam Court and others might well be asking why the MP isn't investigating their complaints about the NIBE system which is clearly not meeting "their health, care and wellbeing requirements"...
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