Cambridgeshire Home Energy Support Service
Discover how we help people stay warm in their own homes and save on their energy costs.
Why is this needed?
Fuel poverty causes misery, ill health and premature deaths in millions of households across the UK. A household is in fuel poverty if they cannot afford to adequately heat their home. As a result, someone in fuel poverty will likely be cold, ill and making difficult decisions whether to heat their home or eat.
Cambridgeshire Home Energy Support Service (CHESS) is vital to help address both the immediate and long-term impacts of the cost of living crisis, for example supporting with unpaid energy bills (debt) and rising poverty levels, as well as providing households with the information and resources needed to stay warm and healthy, whilst cutting costs and carbon.
Funder
Funding for Cambridgeshire Home Energy Support Service (CHESS) is provided by the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme via the Energy Saving Trust.
What are we doing?
We are working in partnership with PECT (Peterborough Environment City Trust), an independent charity dedicated to creating more sustainable places to deliver the Cambridgeshire Home Energy Support Service. The project delivery area includes the districts of East Cambridgeshire, Fenland and Huntingdonshire.
We train and help frontline workers to identify and support households in, or at risk of, fuel poverty.
Experienced Energy Advisors:
- provide energy efficiency advice by phone
- undertake home energy visits
- offer funding to help clear fuel debt or buy oil where people cannot afford to heat their homes
- make referrals to other providers
How can you get involved?
If you, or someone you know, is living in, or at risk of, fuel poverty then please ask for help by calling 0800 8021773 (this is a freephone number). Alternatively, you can go online and make a referral to PECT.
If you would like to volunteer your services to spread the word about this project if your paid roles brings you into contact with people in fuel poverty then please call Linda Watson, Finance Officer, on 01353 865026.
What impact has our work had?
Since February 2023, we have:
- recruited and trained 99 frontline workers acting as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the project
- dealt with 38 referrals through telephone or in-person support
- provided over £19,000 of fuel debt relief to households struggling to meet their energy bills, eliminating some or of all of their debt
Updates
Watch a video about the CHESS project and hear from our volunteers and frontline workers as they talk about the difference the project is making to the people they come into contact with.
