District Heating Meeting with Councillors and Cabinet Members

We organised a meeting to discuss the huge increase in district heating charges facing leaseholders all over the borough. The following guest speakers attended, and answered residents questions in a Q & A session following presentations.

• Cllr Sarah King – Cabinet Member for Council Homes
• Cllr John Btteson – Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency
• Tom Vosper – Southwark Heat Networks

The evening began with a presentation by Tom Lloyd (Forum Chair) available here (Click link to view)

This was followed by a presentation from Tom Vosper (Southwark Heat Networks) available here (Click link to view)

This was followed by a Q&A session with the invited panel. lasting over 90 mins. Many excellent questions were asked, some answered, and some taken away by the councillors.

The one thing that became crystal clear is that the problems on the Brandon & North Peckham estates are not ‘one-off anomalies’ but part of a much wider issue across many heat networks in the borough.

Please see the cost & efficiency data for ALL district heating systems in Southwark available here (Click link to download the data file)

There were some very worrying accounts from the Wyndham estate, with a major works boiler replacement that seems to be going from shipwreck to shipwreck.

The next steps are to coallate all the meeting minutes, identify the actions to be taken forward by the councillors, and look to hold a follow up meeting in the new year.

We would like to thank Cllr Batteson, Cllr King, and Tom Vosper, for attending the meeting and making some commitments to resolve some of the issues raised.