Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has branded the government's new Green Home grant a 'shambles', after many applicants have found it impossible to get any work done.
The Green Home scheme launched earlier this month, and offers homeowners £5,000 or £10,000 grants to make make households in Britain more environmentally friendly.
But while the scheme has already proven popular, some people claim they've found it impossible to get any work done, as they can't find a local tradesperson who is working under the scheme to complete any work due to short supply.
Secondly, you only have six months to complete the work to qualify.
These two factors combined mean many people are struggling.
Martin decided to find out how it was going - polling his followers on Twitter to see if people had been able to find tradespeople.
The Mirror reports how he was unimpressed with the results.
"This is a shambles by the Government," the finance journalist tweeted on seeing the initial results.
"Currently 6 in 7 who've applied for the Green Home Grant find it a flop as no installers can do it. Many will miss out due to losing the postcode lottery."
People also replied having problems with the limitations of the scheme too.
That's because there are two sorts of things you can get the grants for:
- primary improvements, such as insulation for walls or low carbon heat such as a biomass boiler or a ground source heat pump;
- secondary improvements like draught proofing, double glazing or new heating controls or thermostatic radiator valves
But you can only get money for the second if you also get one of the first.
John Tweeted: "It’s ridiculous Martin, I would benefit enormously from some double glazing to replace old draughty metal framed single glazing but first I would have to have a heat pump installed which I don’t need, don’t want and would anyway use up all the £5,000 grant available."
And that's before we get to the problem of finding a registered installer - with Mirror Money understanding that there are fewer than 2,000 ground source heat pump installers registered in England and just 6 months to complete the work to qualify.
In response to the findings of his poll, Martin had some suggestions saying the Government must "1) Get more installers 2) Spread the budget out 3) Extend the 6 month deadline.
"Of course I accept this is only a twitter poll so not a statistically representative sample of the UK population.
"Yet it is a confirmation of the many complaints I've had over the scheme. And certainly is likely strongly indicative of the situation."
