The salt fringe as an energy periphery: Energy efficiency in the private rental sector of seaside towns in England and Wales

Low-carbon energy futures increasingly focus on improving the energy efficiency of homes to reduce emissions and living conditions. Energy efficiency can represent a justice-led intervention supporting those most in need, living in the least efficient homes or with the least capacity to act, including many households relying on the private rental housing sector. This paper provides an empirically grounded intervention to argue for the necessity of future scholarship and interventions in United Kingdom energy and social policy to pay closer attention to seaside towns. We use the case of seaside towns to argue for broader geographical conceptualisations of energy peripheries, beyond rurality. Recently described as ‘the salt fringe’, seaside towns are important political and cultural sites: often symbolising processes of deprivation and communities being ‘left behind’. They also represent distinct geographies of energy poverty and inefficiency contingent on a range of socio-economic and historical factors, including property tenure. Through analysis of Energy Performance Certificate data for England and Wales, we highlight how seaside towns can be characterised as new energy peripheries, identifying statistically significant clusters of energy-inefficient private rentals. We reflect on the importance of understanding place-based context and stories—closing with a profile of the Fylde, a stretch of coastline in the north-west England. These findings advance scholarship on low-carbon transitions by illuminating important links between energy peripheries and energy efficiency; highlighting seaside towns as important peripheries; and detailing the complex factors defining such peripherality both today and in future energy transitions.