Why a warm home will soon become a luxury

Politicians love to pose as saviours of the planet. But it’s the public that will bear the exorbitant cost

Pimlico is a quiet part of central London. But in recent weeks, it has been turned into the front line in the climate wars, thanks to the local council’s zealous pursuit of its Net Zero targets.

At the centre of the battle are the residents of Pimlico’s Churchill Gardens Estate. They fall within the jurisdiction of Westminster City Council, which since 2022 has been run by Labour. More than 3,000 homes, schools and a library on the estate are currently heated by three giant but ailing gas boilers and a system of ageing pipes that are prone to bursting. One solution to this problem would be to supply each home with an electric boiler at a cost of between £1,500 and £5,000 each – a solution that would require no new pipework.

But Westminster City Council has other, far more expensive ideas. It is considering asking each household to pay between £40,000 and £66,000 to be moved on to new pipes in a low-carbon ‘heat network’ – all so it can achieve its dream of Westminster becoming Net Zero by 2040.

The council wants to use a planned project called the South Westminster Area Network (SWAN) to pipe in heat direct to the estate from sources that include the London Underground, the Thames and London’s sewer network. And it will involve no gas and no emissions. According to Vital Energi, one half of the partnership behind SWAN, heat networks are ‘the most cost-effective way to decarbonise our densely populated cities’.

But ‘cost-effective’ for whom? Certainly not for those living in Pimlico, who’re expected to fork out tens of thousands of pounds each. It’s difficult to find a clearer example of local councils’ willingness to impoverish residents in the name of Net Zero.

The SWAN initiative, which intends to heat the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, the Royal Opera House and other landmarks in Britain’s capital, will receive £100million in investment in the next three years and perhaps £1 billion by 2050. When completed, it will be one of the largest heat networks in the UK.

And it’s far from the only one planned. Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announced in October that new buildings in Leeds, Plymouth, Bristol, Stockport, Sheffield and two other parts of London must be designed to connect to the low-carbon district-heating systems it has planned for these areas. One of the two projected London heat networks would take the waste heat generated by data centres around Old Oak and Park Royal in west London to supply heat to more than 10,000 new homes, businesses and a major hospital. Meanwhile, a heat network in Leeds will draw off excess heat from a glass factory to warm buildings nearby.

It all sounds impressive. Yet the prohibitive sums of money involved in establishing these heat networks, and the relatively small numbers of buildings and homes that will benefit from them, shows that this is not a serious alternative to gas central heating.

The real point of the heat-networks policy is mainly to send a political message. It paints the government and local councils as virtuous crusaders against climate change, while putting enormous pressure on householders still using gas central heating to change their supposedly sinful ways.

Heat networks are just one part of the government’s green overhaul of our heating systems. Next April, Miliband hopes to force mandatory targets for sales of heat pumps on manufacturers of boilers. But because heat pumps remain unpopular with consumers, despite the vast amount of subsidies and other schemes encouraging their take-up, the main effect of the target will be to force up the price of conventional boilers, hitting households hard.

The government seems far more concerned about global warming than it is about Britons getting cold in their homes. Labour’s vindictive decision to withdraw the winter-fuel payment, and its willingness to fine users of log-burning stoves up to £300, reveal its disdain for old people and those living in rural areas who are most vulnerable to cold snaps.

Politicians are happy to be seen waging war on climate change, but they expect the public to bear the cost. What Westminster City Council has in mind for Pimlico is what Ed Miliband has in mind for all of us. Keeping a house warm could soon become a luxury few can afford.