Lights Tsar

[Gromit]

// The Coalition will this week begin recruiting thousands of workers for the organisation, which is to be headed by a dedicated “Lights Tsar”.
Employees will be tasked with going door-to-door to businesses and homes to manually switch off unnecessary lights. Staff at the agency will be able to issue penalty notices to repeat offenders and will be armed with binoculars and other equipment to allow them to ascertain whether rooms are empty or in use.

One source said: “It’s the little things that count. Do you really need the kitchen light on when you’re watching TV in the living room? We don’t think so and we’re aiming to come down hard on those who do.” //

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9964387/Government-to-appoint-Lights-Tsar-to-get-Britain-switching-off.html

A good idea stopping wasteful energy use?
or
Big brother, surely they have more important things to do?

[emmie]

it's April the 1st, so joke surely.

[sandyRoe]

During the last war ARP wardens would tell people to put lights out. Then it was a matter of security. Now it's a matter of economics and also helping the enviroment. It seems one of the better ideas to come from this coalition government.

[emmie]

energy expert olaf priol, otherwise known as april fool, wake up.

[emmie]

The policy was described by energy expert Olaf Priol as a “win-win-win” for the Coalition. A DECC source said: “We are committed to making these lights go out.”

[EDDIE51]

Got you!
Check the date !

[sandyRoe]

I didn't read the link. But as a proposal it seems no more egregious than charging recipients of housing benefit a bedroom tax because they have a spare room.

[EDDIE51]

sandy the 'Bedroom tax' is no such thing . It is just a reduction in housing benefit paid to people who occupy homes that are too large for their needs. The reason behind it is to encourage people in social housing who now have larger homes than they need to 'downsize' and free larger houses for familiys.

[Gromit]

Yep, I was got :-)

[Gromit]

EDDIE51

Are there enough 1 bedroom properties to downsize to? I am told there aren't. Housing Associations who run social housing are being inundated with requests for smaller properties but they do not have them to let.

So people are unable to downsize and are losing benefit. Some of use suspect the stated aim of reorganising housing need is bogus, and yhe real motivation was a stealthy way to cut housing benefit.

[emmie]

always check a second source, there wasn't any.

[Gromit]

// JUST 20 empty one bedroom council homes are currently available in Welwyn Hatfield – even though more than 1,200 households may be forced to downsize from next month.

Controversial Government plans - labelled a “bedroom tax” by critics – mean some residents will be hit by annual benefit cuts of up to £1,040 after April 1 if they remain in their current home. //

http://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/not_enough_small_homes_to_enforce_bedroom_tax_shake_up_say_critics_1_1980277

[emmie]

Eddie, don't suppose you are in line for a bedroom tax change, i am, and now find myself not just severely out of pocket, but also not knowing whether any day soon will lose the home i have spent a fortune on, and years of my life, everyone calls it that, a bedroom tax, including leading homeless charities like shelter.

[sandyRoe]

Wasn't it Thatcher who famously said that there is no such thing as society? People who have raised their families in a community, and then watched them leave to set up their own homes, will bear the burden of this tax.
If they can find smaller accommodation, and that's doubtful, an unintended consequence of this will be to further fragment their communities.

[emmie]

all the local authorities know this, especially ours, that there are not enough smaller properties to downsize to, not only that downsizing may well mean not just moving out of the borough but out of the capital. One more thing, not all of us have been on housing benefit forever, many like me only did so after serious illness kicked in, so would appreciate anyone who keeps banging on about how fair this is, that all in bigger properties should move, think quietly that most of us have invested more in these properties than many do in homes that one owns, and the only reason one was not able to buy privately because at the time mortgages were hard to come by if you did not have a high enough salary.

[emmie]

sandyr, indeed it will and in some quarters you can already see the fallout. Fairness for whom.

[Gromit]

I fell for it because I remembered a similar propsal reported a few weeks ago in France...

// // The ‘bankrupt’ French government yesterday set out a law forcing all non-residential buildings to turn off their lights at night in a bid to save £600million a year.

From July 1, interior lights will have to be turned off within an hour of the last person leaving the premises, while all exterior lights and shop fronts will have to be plunged into darkness by 1am. //

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270680/Bankrupt-France-set-save-600m--turning-lights.html

[emmie]

always check your "facts". besides which i believe that many companies don't need to keep their lights blazing, especially those in the capital, you see these massive office blocks ablaze, and never understood why. Once the cleaners have been in, then surely the lights can be switched off.

[EDDIE51]

em10 We would be in for the 'bedroom tax' but it does not apply to people of pension age even if they do not get a pension. We have 5 children who have now left home so my wife and I occupy a 3 bedroom house . We are looking to move to a 'senior citizen' one bedroom place as soon as one is available.

[emmie]

but if you don't have to why would you.

[emmie]

just take a look at these rents, this is just one agent, in one borough


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/Camden-93941/1-bed-flats.html