Village Survey Results Summary

We were particularly keen to assess what people were keen to get involved with or learn more about, and there was plenty of enthusiasm on all fronts. We’ll be responding with a number of initiatives including surveys of energy efficiency for some houses, and we will be purchasing a thermal camera so anyone who is interested can see where the warmth is escaping from their homes. 

We will also be running information sessions on the topics where there was most interest, for instance to disseminate the results of the Hadstock Biodiversity and Nature Study, to discuss recycling and waste plastics reduction and to give details of the means-tested grants that will be relevant to some residents for home insulation and draught-proofing.

Hadstock has a lot of types of houses and many historic houses; almost half of all respondents lived in historic houses built before 1920 (and quite a few much older still).  There was a lot of concern that it was much more difficult to make energy-saving changes to listed buildings.  We’ll respond to this by bringing in an expert who specialises in energy efficiency for Traditional Buildings to discuss what can be done now and what changes are likely in the future.  We will also be sharing experiences from householders – for instance even though double glazing is often not allowed in the original windows of listed buildings, there are new types of secondary glazing that are practically invisible and very efficient.

Currently 72% of homes use a gas boiler as their primary source of heating, and a further 18% have oil boilers.  Five houses have wood burning stoves as their main source of heating, but (to our surprise) about two thirds of homes also burn wood in open fires or stoves to supplement their central heating.  We are currently analysing the barriers that are stopping residents from moving towards less costly and more environmentally friendly ways of heating their homes.  Initial results from the survey suggest that the non-listed buildings are just as likely to have oil boilers as listed buildings, but residents with oil boilers are less interested in making changes to their energy efficiency than others.

As this graph shows, only a small minority of Hadstock homes report having EPCs in the B and C range and none have an A rating. (EPCs, or Energy Performance Certificates, give a summary of the energy efficiency of a building, and also suggest where improvements could be made to improve the rating).  A quarter of respondents didn’t know whether their house had an EPC rating, but a lot of residents were keen to get an EPC and discuss what they could do, and this project will plan to provide as many as possible of these opportunities.   By the end of the Sustainable Hadstock project we hope that many more houses will be in the B-C range by making improvements to insulation, draught-proofing, lighting, etc.

We will be running events to inform you about some of the new technologies for reducing bills and carbon emissions; there was particular enthusiasm for sessions on solar panels, storage batteries and heat pumps.

We also gathered useful information on how best to communicate with people in the Village, where and when to hold meetings; Evening meetings in the Village Hall are the most popular format, followed by Saturday mornings. The Hadstock magazine is still the preferred source of information for almost 80% of residents, closely followed by the HadstockInfo email. We will be using both – please keep a look out!

Getting responses from over 80% of the homes in Hadstock shows what a vibrant community we have, and how much enthusiasm there is for the Sustainable Hadstock project.

We’re particularly grateful to those people who distributed and collected the questionnaires.  Thank you all.

Now we know where we stand, you will be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months with information, events and practical solutions for you to try

Please come along to hear more and ask your questions.

The full survey dataset can be accessed here.

Jonathan Hutchinson and Brendan Burchell,

on behalf of The Sustainable Hadstock Team