Councils to Get £562m Energy Efficiency Upgrades for Social Housing

THE HOMES of 50,000 households will be upgraded with green improvements from a £562 million fund, the government has announced.

The funding is for 200 local authorities in England and Scotland to upgrade the least energy efficient and fuel-poor homes. It will help support 8,000 energy sector jobs.

These funding consists of a £500 million Local Authority Delivery (LAD) Fund, a component of the Green Homes Grant. It is matched with £84 million from Local Authorities and Housing Associations.

A further £62 million is from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator, which will explore innovative ways to deliver deep retrofits of social housing. A further £60 million of funding for the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund was announced at the Autumn 2020 Spending Review and will be available in financial year 2021 to 2022.

Energy Efficiency Measures

The funding is for measures such as cavity wall, underfloor and loft insulation. It includes replacing gas boilers with low carbon alternatives like heat pumps where appropriate. It will also include installing solar panels on many social houses.

UK Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “This is an initial down payment on the UK government’s plan to invest over £9 billion into eradicating fuel poverty, improving the lives and homes of low-income households. This is yet another important step we are taking to eliminate our contribution to climate change and build back greener from the pandemic.”

Emissions from domestic properties currently account for around 25% of the UK’s carbon emissions. The funding will help cut over 70,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere annually. The equivalent of the total direct and indirect carbon footprint produced by around 9,000 UK households, the government says.

It will help the 39% of social housing believed to be below Energy Performance Certificate C in England.

See the list of projects awarded funding under the Local Authority Delivery scheme so far here.

See the list of projects awarded funding under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator (SHDF) here.