An aircraft fitted with military-style thermal imagers is being used by a council to identify families wasting energy.
The data is being used to create colour-coded maps, which will enable council officers to visit residents losing the most heat from their homes and offer them energy-saving advice.
Conservative-led Broadland District Council in Norfolk is one of the first local authorities to hire out the specially equipped spy plane at a cost of u00a330,000.
"We realised it would be useful to see if any of the homes which were particularly hot were properties where people had not insulated their lofts," said Andy Jarvis, head of environmental services.
"We also saw very cold properties and think we might have picked up people on low incomes who are not heating their homes because they cannot afford to."
When a pilot scheme was introduced in Haringey, north London, in 2007 some critics complained it was an infringement of privacy.
But Broadland's Liberal Democrat group leader Stuart Beadle said, "I think it's a good thing. Cameras are everywhere u2013 people have to accept it."

An aircraft fitted with military-style thermal imagers is being used by a council to identify families wasting energy

Spy plane to snoop on energy wasters in UK

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