How green is my street?

We think of our community as being fairly ‘green’. But when it comes to the energy efficiency of our homes, how green is my town? How green is my street? And how green in my home?

Home energy use accounts for a big chunk of total UK carbon emissions, at least 14%, mostly for heat. An EPC certificate shows how energy efficient your home is, with A the best and G the worst. To meet our national carbon reduction targets the government says we need to upgrade all homes to an EPC of C or better in the next 10-15 years.

This is going to be a big task.

Greening Steyning has dug into the online data on this and discovered that, as of September 2020, barely a third of homes in Steyning, Bramber and Beeding have an EPC rating of C or better. This means two thirds of homes don’t meet this standard, worse than the national average.

So which are the greenest streets in Steyning, as judged by EPC ratings? We’ve done the analysis and ranked streets based on the percentage of houses that have an EPC of C or better. There’s a huge range - from zero to 100%.

Fairs Field and College Hill come top of the list as the ‘greenest streets’ in Steyning. Both have large new developments so it’s not surprising to see them scoring well.

It’s interesting to see that other more mixed-age streets like Toomey Road and Tanyard Lane are also in the top ten. It’s a sign that homeowners have taken active steps to improve their properties.

If you zoom in on the least energy efficient streets, it’s easy to understand why historic Church Street comes lowest on the list. None of the houses there score better than a D. But it’s more surprising to see more recently-built streets like Breach Close and Kings Stone Avenue in the bottom ten.

What is striking is how wide the differences are between properties, even neighbouring houses of a similar vintage. This shows that people are making a real difference by insulating their homes and taking other energy saving steps.

The clear message from the analysis is that there’s room for improvement almost everywhere. EPC Certificates also show potential energy ratings and even in our worst performing streets the vast majority of houses could achieve a C rating or better. So there are big gains to be made by taking energy efficiency seriously.

So how green is your street, and your house? You can find out, and pick up some tips on what you can do to make your home greener, by following this link: www.greeningsteyning.org/howgreen

There are figures for Bramber and Beeding and also some great drone footage to illustrate the message in this  story.

Contact Details:
E: greeningsteyning@gmail.com
W: https://greeningsteyning.org