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You and Yours: Smart meters, Impact of Airbnb, Spending your pension

Smart meters, the impact of Airbnb, spending your pension

23/10/2017

Smart meters, Impact of Airbnb, Spending your pension

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Smart meters, Impact of Airbnb, Spending your pension

What are you spending your pension on? The number of people taking money out of their pension pots has risen by 69% in the last year. What are their retirement plans?

An investigation by this programme has found that the government's smart meter programme faces further delays. Seven million smart meters have been installed by energy suppliers already, but many of them stop being 'smart' if you switch supplier to save money. A new second generation of meter is available that will allow homeowners to switch without problem, but the eight biggest energy suppliers have told us they won't start fitting them until next July. Only British Gas will start earlier, but not until January 2018.
What value do you place on computer generated art? Increasingly designers and artists are using computers to create their work, and it allows them to produce it at volume. We visit the Manchester based illustrator Stanley Chow to see how he produces his work, and discuss how computers have changed the contemporary art market. 
What are you spending your pension on? The number of people taking money out of their pension pots has risen by 69% in the last year. In the last financial year 393,000 people withdrew their retirement savings thanks to new government rules that allow people aged over 55 to access their pensions early. We speak to people who have bought helicopters and narrowboats, and ask how they plan to fund the rest of their retirement. 
The Open Data Institute is starting a project looking at how data can make the peer to peer accommodation market work better for everyone. They have received government funding to look at how the data held by sites such as Airbnb, local authorities and landlords can be used to access the impact of this accommodation on communities. We look at a research project in Australia that investigated how Airbnb had changed the housing market in Sydney. 
Presented by Winifred Robinson.
Produced by Beatrice Pickup.

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