Social housing providers and local authorities across England will receive up to £1.8bn of UK Government money, as part of its Warm Homes Plan, to improve the energy efficiency of homes.
The aim of the funding is to retrofit up to 170,000 homes with improvements designed to reduce energy bills, improve comfort and cut emissions.
Up to £1.29bn will be made available to social housing operators through the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund and 144 projects have been successful in securing funding.
“With the fund oversubscribed, it is clear that there is both momentum and appetite among housing associations to upgrade their homes at scale and pace,” said the National Housing Federation’s CEO Kate Henderson.
Another £500m will be allocated to 270 local authorities over the next three years under the Warm Homes: Local Grant supporting more than 70 projects, all of which should prioritise energy efficiency in low-income households.
Minister for Energy Consumers Miatta Fahnbulleh said: “Living in a warm, comfortable home should not be a luxury. It is a right that has been out of reach for too many people for too long.
“By giving this funding to local authorities and social housing providers we are delivering on our promise to improve the homes of thousands of people across England.”
The Government stepped in to expand the Warm Homes Discount, which gives people £150 off their energy bills, to around 2.7 million households when the energy regulator Ofgem confirmed an increase to the energy price cap pushing the average household’s gas and electricity bills to more than £1,849 a year.
Green economy groups have blamed the increase on the UK’s continued exposure to gas price spikes through its dependence on gas heating and its linking of electricity wholesale prices to gas wholesale prices.
The funding announced in mid-March comes after the Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero (DESNZ) first launched its Warm Homes Plan late last year.
The Plan’s overarching commitment is to invest £3.2bn of public money across the forthcoming financial year 2025-6 in home energy efficiency and low-carbon heating. This funding should impact some 300,000 homes, with a targeted focus on social housing.
Ministers have made available more funding under the Boiler Upgrade scheme which enables homes to claim up to £7,500 towards the cost of a new heat pump.
Another update has seen landlords of rental properties mandated to improve their Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating to ‘C’ by 2030, two years later than was pledged under Boris Johnson.
The UK’s housing stock has been labelled one of the oldest and least efficient in Europe.
Syntegra MD Alan Wing-King said: “Any funding for retrofitting purposes has to be a good thing. Efficiencies are bound to come quicker if people are supported by the Government and not simply expected to pay to upgrade their own systems. That said, many changes can be made quicky and easily for relatively low cost but this should start some useful momentum in the right retrofit direction.”
The Climate Change Committee has repeatedly warned that stop-start changes to key policy packages on energy efficiency and low-carbon heating has hampered decarbonisation of the UK’s housing stock, which is one of the oldest and least efficient in Europe.
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