10 Feb 2012: London has historically fared poorly under the Government’s Warm Front programme, as has been detailed in earlier posts here. There’s been some criticism of Warm Front in recent weeks (see here and here) that, despite Government cuts made in 2011, there has been a significant underspend to the programme this year.
NEA have reported that London has seen a 67 per cent reduction in applications over the period March – December 2011 when compared with the same period in the previous year (a similar reduction has been seen in other regions).
West Ham MP Lyn Brown has recently asked DECC a Parliamentary Question about the level of Warm Front grants provided in her constituency and in the wider Newham area. The full answer can be seen here (scroll to column 274).
In summary:
West Ham saw a Warm Front spend-high in 2008/09 of £517,913 with 540 homes assisted.
Similarly Newham saw a Warm Front high the same year with a spend of £1,369,686 and 1340 homes assisted.
Provisional figures for 2011/12 are only available at the moment but they serve to illustrate the level of reduction:
West Ham has seen a spend of £94,736 with only 32 homes assisted.
Newham has seen a spend of £219,503 and 70 homes assisted.