Fuel Poverty in Cheshire East

The metric for Fuel poverty in England is the Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) indicator A household is considered to be fuel poor if: 1) They have a fuel poverty energy efficiency rating (FPEER) of band D or below; and 2) If they were to spend their modelled energy costs, they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line.

The LILEE definition is a relative indicator with regards to income but an absolute measure regarding energy efficiency. The LILEE indicator is a dual indicator consisting of: i) The number of households that have both low incomes and low energy efficiency (the shaded area in Figure 1) ii) The depth of fuel poverty among these fuel poor households. This is measured through a fuel poverty gap (the distance of the arrows in Figure 1), which represents the difference between the required fuel costs for each household and the nearest fuel poverty threshold.

The key elements in determining whether a household is fuel poor under the LILEE indicator are:

• Household income (after housing costs);
• Fuel poverty energy efficiency rating (in addition to building energy performance factors this is adjusted for direct energy cost interventions e.g. Warm Home Discount); and
• Fuel costs.

Fuel Poverty statistics are 'lagged' by two years meaning that data published in 2024 will refer to the fuel poverty rate in 2022 this is important to remember when viewing small level variations year on year.

An estimated 13.1% of households are considered poor across England (3.18 million) and across the North West this rises to 14.1% of households being considered fuel poor.

In Cheshire East 11.2% of households were considered fuel poor in 2022 which is 20,163 households as of the 2024 data. This is decrease of 0.4% or 579 households from the previous in year in which 11.6% (20,760) of households were considered fuel poor. Cheshire East has a lower percentage of fuel poor households compared to both the North West and the England rate.

The map below shows fuel poverty at a Cheshire East LSOA (Lower Layer Super Output Area) level based on the 2024 data. The darker the area the higher the percentage of households that a fuel poor in that LSOA.

The swipe map below compares the proportion of households in fuel poverty in 2022 on the left, to 2021 on the right. The darker the area the greater the number of households in fuel poverty.

The map below shows the percentage change at LSOA level between the 2021 and 2022 datasets. The lighter areas has seen the percentage of households in fuel poverty fall, while the darker areas indicates that the percentage of households in fuel poverty increased between the 2021 and 2022 datasets.