Natural Gas: Rural Areas
(asked on 25th July 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of rural communities that are not connected to the gas supply network.
There is no definitive source for the number of households that are not connected to the gas supply network; BEIS estimates these figures by subtracting the number of domestic gas meters from the estimated number of households.
The table below shows the latest estimates of households not connected to the gas network by country of the UK. These estimates are also published down to GB local authority level within BEIS’ ‘Sub-national estimates of households not connected to the gas network’ dataset, most recently published in 2018.
Nation | Number of households1 | Estimated number of households not connected to the gas network1 | % |
England | 23,229,000 | 3,024,000 | 13% |
Scotland | 2,452,000 | 495,000 | 20% |
Wales | 1,342,000 | 225,000 | 17% |
Northern Ireland | 730,0002 | 497,0003 | 68% |
Total | 27,753,000 | 4,241,000 | 15% |
Source: (1) Sub-national estimates of households not connected to the gas network, BEIS, updated 2018, except for NI see footnote 3; (2) Live tables on household projections, United Kingdom, 1961-2039, MHCLG 2016 estimate; (3) Transparency Reports 2017, NI Utility Regulator