Gillian Noble of Scottish Power, Lord Beith and Vanessa Powell-Hoyland at the NEA Heat Heroes 2017/2018 awards presentations at the Houses of Parliament.
Researcher, Vanessa Powell-Hoyland is named a Heat Hero!
Vanessa, who is a Public Health Theme Lead in the Public Health Directorate at Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, as well as working as a Research Assistant at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, was named a Heat Hero at a special awards ceremony at the Houses of Parliament this week.
The Heat Heroes Awards, are open to individuals across England and Wales and celebrate those who go above and beyond to get the recognition they deserve – for helping people in their community live in warmer homes.
Held in partnership between ScottishPower and the charity National Energy Action, this year there were some very strong candidates, but the judges managed to select fifteen worthy winners.
Not-for-profit organisations including local authorities, health and social care agencies, voluntary and statutory agencies and community groups were encouraged to nominate staff and volunteers for the award.
Maria Wardrobe, Director of Communications and External Relations at National Energy Action commented: “Each year I am bowled over by the passion and tenacity that our Heat Heroes demonstrate, always going above and beyond what is expected of them in their job or as unpaid volunteers. It was a delight to meet them and be able to say well done and thank you on behalf of those they help.”
Gillian Noble, Sales Director at ScottishPower said: “ScottishPower is delighted to be sponsoring the Heat Heroes Awards for the sixth year. The hard work and commitment shown by these dedicated people within their communities is crucially important in helping to tackle fuel poverty. On behalf of ScottishPower I’d like to congratulate all the nominees and winners.”
The winners were shining examples to others in their communities; here is what nominator Catherine Homer, Research Fellow in the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, had to say about Vanessa:
“Through Vanessa’s persistence and dedication she has accessed over £100,000 of recurrent funding from a variety of sources including the Better Care Fund to deliver projects including: boiler on prescription, winter warmth training programmes and resources, and community roadshows. These programmes have supported over 300 households in 2016/17 in Doncaster to live in warmer homes and change their behaviours around energy use. Measures resulted in an average increase in SAP rating was 22.6 equating to an average saving of £754 per household.”
Catherine goes on to say that Vanessa’s passion and commitment is unquestionable:
“She has earned the respect of professionals from various professional groups including Local Authority Councillors and Health and Wellbeing Board members, front line statutory and voluntary sector staff and leading academics. The mix of her roles enables her to understand the lived experiences of people living in fuel poverty and translate this into practice, whether that be influencing the local and regional agenda, accessing funding or commissioning services to support people to live in warmer homes.”
Huge congratulations to Vanessa, from all of us in the faculty, and indeed at SHU.
If you want to find out more about the Heat Heroes initiative, please visit the website.
