Central heating in Crawley

As part of a series of releases analysing the data coming out of the 2021 Census, this week the House of Commons Library has published a breakdown of central heating data by constituency.

As a whole, we do rely more on gas than the regional or UK average. This difference is largely due to the urban nature of the constituency boundaries, lacking those rural areas which due to a lack of gas connection are forced to use other sources, predominantly heating oil.

The most alarming figures are those relating to households without any heating, with one in every 49 properties in Broadfield East lacking any central heating. As I can’t find the exact wording, it could be that some of these properties intentionally lack central heating, as the Tollgate Hill section of the ward was largely self-built. However, given that this has consistently been identified as the deprived part of Crawley, it seems far more likely that in Twenty-First Century Britain we still have a remarkable proportion of people lacking access to a basic human need.

Overall, with 80% of households on gas, the picture sets out the scale of the challenge we face in trying to convert the town away from fossil fuels by 2050. While the map shows that Northgate, Three Bridges and Southgate are doing better than average on this account, I’m afraid this is most likely due to the way the Office for National Statistics has divided up the neighbourhoods.

The boundaries for these areas mean they contain disproportionately more modern flats than the norm for the town and these have largely been equipped with electrical heating systems. While this means these areas have lower gas usage than the average for Crawley, that still leaves around 70% of properties needing to be converted. That retrofitting will have a big cost attached for property-owners and, having rented flats with electrical heating systems, for those living in the properties more expensive heating even beyond the current supply issues in the market.