The Highland Council has won a national award for a project aimed at cutting the cost of heating Highland homes.

The Scottish Energy Efficiency and Health Homes Award, presented during an award ceremony held in Glasgow, recognised the council’s work to assist with reducing energy use in Highland homes through the Home Energy Efficiency Programme for Scotland – Area Based Scheme (HEEPS-ABS) and the particular drive to identify and assist homes that are in fuel poverty or vulnerable to the cost of energy.

The council has achieved substantial improvements to over 1200 properties across the Highlands by upgrading and replacing the insulation of the houses. The scheme works are undertaken by the council partner E.ON.

HEEPS-ABS is a Scottish Government scheme that has been designed and delivered by councils, with local delivery partners. They target fuel-poor areas, to provide energy efficiency measures to a large number of Scottish homes while delivering emission savings and helping reduce fuel poverty. The Highland area-based scheme has run for 4 years and delivers on a range of fabric measures as well as heating to improve the energy rating of the homes to reduce energy bills.

Chair of the council’s planning, development and infrastructure committee, Councillor Audrey Sinclair, congratulated the team on their success.

She said “Everyone involved should feel very proud as they thoroughly deserve this prestigious award. The project is all about working in partnership to bring major energy savings to hard-to-treat properties in fuel poverty parts of the Highlands. The measures really make a huge difference and this latest success follows on from previous national recognition for the work of the team.”

This is the second national award that the council scheme has taken. The Highland Council won the UK project of the year in 2015 at the national Green Deal & ECO Awards.