Affordable green heating for rural homes campaign

OFTEC's campaign - how you can help

At present, UK and Republic of Ireland governments are only supporting a narrow range of expensive low carbon heating technologies. Unless this thinking quickly changes, there is a real danger that progress on decarbonisation will not be made - or that rural households will be forced to pay a very high price for it.

We believe government should focus on policies that create a competitive market for low carbon heat to drive down costs. This is the only way to make solutions accessible to most households without imposing unreasonable cost on either the homeowner or the taxpayer.

Introducing carbon reduction targets that all competing technologies must meet could achieve this.

It will provide the heating industry with the confidence needed to increase investment in research and development, drive innovation and ultimately provide consumers with better solutions, greater choice and lower prices.

Renewable liquid fuels are one cost-effective solution missing from today's market. This simple, drop-in replacement for heating oil could virtually remove carbon emissions from 1.5 million UK homes and 686,000 ROI homes with relatively little capital cost or disruption for the homeowner, but is not currently supported by either government.

What you can do

If you live in the UK, write to or email your MP - explain your concerns and ask them to make the Minister of State (Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth), the Rt Hon Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, aware of this important issue. We have prepared a draft letter to help you or you could write your own to send by post or email.

For further information on the situation in Ireland, please email OFTEC Ireland.

You can download a copy of our UK template letter here, feel free to amend to suit your particular circumstances.

Letter template (docx)

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If you are not sure who your MP is, or how to contact them, you can enter your postcode on the Find your MP website to get their full contact details.

We have also created social media posts for you to use on your own Twitter or Facebook pages. Download the Zip file of social media assets for images and suggested text that you can use for Tweets or Facebook posts.

Social media assets (zip)

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How can you spread the word

Share our campaign video with your family and neighbours - especially if they also live in homes not connected to the mains gas network as they too will be affected. If you have a neighbourhood or parish social media page, this is an ideal place to share the information.

Follow @OFTEC on Twitter and retweet our campaign posts and tag your local radio station, MP (UK) or TD (RoI) for example - we need as many people to understand what is currently at stake.

If you are involved in local charities or groups serving your community, let them know about the campaign too - this could be Food Banks, Citizen's Advice, Churches, Village Hall Associations, School PTA or Governors, MeetUpMonday™ groups. The users of these services could well be impacted by the changes proposed too, but not everyone uses social media.