Against him stand those who think Britain’s hostility to cooling has curdled into a type of masochism.
David Lawrence, of the Centre for British Progress think tank, puts it plainly: we don’t tell people to insulate their homes in winter and then skip the radiators. So why insist shade and shutters are enough in summer?
He points out that air conditioning is standard now in offices, hotels and shops, “but we don’t expect it for schools and hospitals – which is kind of odd, because those are places where millions of people are every day”, and where heat measurably dents concentration, learning and health.
This dispute over the pros and cons of the technology is becoming political.
Some London councils, following a planning “cooling hierarchy”, say low‑energy ways of keeping homes cool should be prioritised over air conditioning and in a small number of cases have ordered property owners to remove them; the Conservative front bench calls it “dark ages” miserabilism; other MPs and political commentators demand an “air-con revolution”.
Since April, in England and Wales the Boiler Upgrade Scheme has offered £2,500 towards a reversible air-air heat pump: a machine that warms a home in winter and cools it in summer. It is, in all but name, Britain’s first air-conditioning subsidy – but it is badged as a heat pump, and only worth a third of the £7,500 for a heating-only model.
Such has been the silence around this grant, that in its first month only around 45 households claimed it. By comparison, the numbers claiming a heating-only model ran into the thousands.
In Scotland homeowners can also get a £7,500 grant for a heat pump via its Home Energy scheme – but for air-air versions that could offer cooling there is no funding at all. And in Northern Ireland there is no universal heat pump grant offered for households.
Under the terms of the England and Wales scheme, some people cannot apply at all. It is closed to social housing and newbuilds – which many argue shuts out the very people most exposed.
Take Woolwich, in south-east London, where a resident called Keisha says her top-floor flat reaches 43C in a heatwave.
She calls the building “inhumane”; she and around twenty neighbours in Canada Court and Clifton Lodge are taking their landlord, the housing association PA Housing, to court over homes they say are unfit to live in.
