The roots of this paper lie in a presentation to DCLG in support of its Homes-for-Life initiative (focusing on the needs of the elderly). It centered on dealing with the mounting challenges of fuel poverty. However, in brainstorming the issues, it became clear to the Edge participants that systemic barriers to ‘fixing’ energy problems with stock housing were so deep-seated that it was impractical to progress the needs of only one part of the community. So the Edge turned its attention to all UK housing stock and considered measures that might enable a national retrofit programme to establish.

This paper summarises Edge’s thoughts. It originally took the form of an animated storyboard building into the diagram on the following page. Here the storyboard is converted into a comic strip to include a brief commentary.