Understanding the Scottish rural economy: research paper

Housing

A household is defined as being in fuel poverty if it would be required to spend more than 10% of its income (including Housing Benefit or Income Support for Mortgage Interest)on fuel in order to maintain a satisfactory heating regime - in this case it does not refer to transportation, but only household consumption. 'Extreme fuel poverty' is defined as a household having to spend more than 20% of its income on household fuel.

Chart 20: Fuel poverty by geographic area, 2015

Source: Scottish House Condition Survey, 2015 (Using Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification 2013-2014)

Chart 20 shows that the proportion of households in Remote Rural Scotland which are classed as extreme fuel poor is more than double that of the proportion in the rest of Scotland (19% compared to 8%). Just over a half of households in Remote Rural Scotland are classed as 'fuel poor', while 27% of households in Accessible Rural Scotland are in fuel poverty. While in the rest of Scotland 30% of households are classed as 'fuel poor'.