A homeowner in Cambridgeshire expressed significant skepticism about a government energy grant scheme, initially fearing it was a scam. David Brain recounted that he learned of the program through a doorstep representative and only proceeded after verifying its legitimacy online and through the government website.
"We were very sceptical, but we went online and we checked them out, and then we checked whether it was a legitimate thing through the government website," Brain said. He described the process of a contractor conducting a survey and still maintaining a degree of doubt throughout.
"They answered the questions. There was no hard sell or a hard push, and because they'd satisfied my scepticism, we went ahead," he added. It was only after the work was completed and he received the handover package that he felt the program was indeed beneficial, acknowledging, "All the way through, to be honest with you... it was only at the end, once the process had been done and they'd sent me the handover package, that I thought, 'Well, you know, it does seem too good to be true, but you know, we were a beneficiary from it, thankfully.'"
Meanwhile, local authorities in Cambridgeshire have requested an extension of the grant funding from the government due to the scheme's success. Councillor Rosy Moore of Cambridge City Council, the lead authority, stated that all allocated grant money is currently in the pipeline to be spent. "We've been so successful that all of our [grant] money is booked to be spent, as it were, that's all in the pipeline," Moore said. "So we've actually written to the department and asked if they could extend it for us because our partnership is working so well."