Retrofitting Leaky Homes Would Cost £5bn Over Next Four Years

Renovating the UK’s draughty homes to low-carbon standards would cost the government only £5bn within the next four years and would create 100,000 jobs, cut people’s energy bills, increase tax revenue and bring tens of billions in economic benefits, the construction industry has estimated. Sector leaders have written to ministers proposing a new “national retrofit strategy” that they say would boost a green recovery in the UK and put Britain on track to meet its climate targets. The proposal comes ahead of the government’s heat and buildings strategy, which is expected to be published soon. Read more on the Guardian website.

Retrofitting leaky homes would cost £5bn over next four years, UK ministers told | Environment | The Guardian 

Greener Homes - Decarbonising The Housing Stock

The UK has some of the most inefficient housing in Europe, and a new report, Greener Homes – embedding energy efficiency in the housing market, urges the government to make homes more energy efficient by bringing forward a National Retrofit Strategy. The report recommends the introduction of a sliding scale of stamp duty, capped at £25,000, with the most energy efficient homes accruing significantly less tax than the least energy efficient. The report also suggests a tax rebate for a period after purchase, to encourage homeowners to undertake their own energy efficiency improvements such as insulating lofts and walls, draught proofing doors, windows and floors. Download the report from the RIBA website.

https://www.architecture.com/-/media/GatherContent/Paywalled-resource-with-many-PDFs-VPC/Additional-Documents/GreenerHomespdf.pdf

Chancellor Announces £50m Social Housing Retrofit Programme

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced plans for a £50m fund to pilot innovative retrofit projects for social housing, as part of a £3bn fund for green jobs designed to jump-start the post-covid economy. The announcement comes the day after the chancellor announced a £1.6bn rescue package for the arts and a week after the prime minister announced he would bring forward £5bn for infrastructure projects in his “build, build, build” speech. The £3bn sum will fund green schemes in a “drive to power up the nation’s workforce and protect the environment”, according to a statement from the Treasury. Read more on Housing Today.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/chancellor-announces-50m-social-housing-retrofit-programme/5106864.article

Housing Stock 'Needs Massive Retrofit To Meet Climate Targets'

Hundreds of millions of pounds must be spent on the UK’s draughty housing stock to meet the government’s climate change targets, with progress so far too slow to make the difference needed. Repairing existing homes to a high standard, with insulation and renewable energy technology, would cut consumer bills and bring health improvements, a new report shows. Domestic housing accounts for about a fifth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from heating and hot water. But attempts to bring these down have largely failed, prompting renewed calls from experts for a national programme of home improvement that would make dwellings low-carbon for the next 30 years. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/11/uks-housing-stock-needs-massive-retrofit-to-meet-climate-targets

Tower Block Residents Are Being Left In the Cold

Changes to the government’s support scheme for energy efficiency have seen tower block retrofit schemes shelved, leaving residents of Britain’s tower blocks in poor conditions with high energy bills. But new research shows that, in spite of the changes, there’s still a strong business case for putting tower blocks at the top rather than the bottom of the queue for energy retrofit. 400,000 homes in the UK are in tower blocks. Many are disadvantaged. Seventy one per cent of people living on or above the 5th floor are social rented sector tenants. Due to poor building fabric resident’s energy bills are often unmanageably high. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

'Government Must Retrofit One Million Homes A Year'

The government must act to retrofit one million homes a year over the next 25 years if it is to end spiralling energy bills and curb carbon emissions, the UK Green Building Council has warned. With Chancellor George Osborne preparing to deliver his budget next week, the UK-GBC is urging him to make energy efficiency a top infrastructure priority, and in doing so "rescue the ailing Green Deal". The UK has over 25 million homes, most of which, the UK-GBC says, are hugely energy inefficient. Homes account for around a quarter of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Read more on 24dash.

Green Deal Benefits Overstated, Study Claims

The system used to calculate energy savings under the Green Deal, which is critical to the flagship energy efficiency programme’s success, is unreliable and inflates the savings a householder can expect to achieve from retrofit work to their home by as much as 77%, a study has found.  Social housing provider Affinity Sutton, which produced the study, monitored the effect of retrofit work carried out by contractor Keepmoat on 102 homes over the course of a year.  The data, analysed by consultants Verco, Baily Garner and Parity Projects, found that the SAP model, which is used to calculate building performance, on average predicted that tenants would save 77% more on their energy bills than they actually did.  Read more on the Building website.

Only 37% of Landlords to Offer Green Deal

Just over a third of social landlords are planning to let tenants take up the government’s green deal programme according to new research.  An exclusive survey by Inside Housing and insulation company SPSenvirowall shows that only 37 per cent of respondents from more than 130 organisations said they would be offering the flagship retrofit programme to their tenants. The majority – 42 per cent – said that they were not sure, while 21 per cent of respondents have already decided they will not pursue the green deal.  Read more on Inside Housing.

ALMOs Must 'Step Up To the Plate'

ALMOs must ‘step up to the plate’ and champion the needs of all of their communities if they are to have a positive future, a government minister has warned.  Don Foster, under secretary of state for housing, said ALMOs faced a ‘challenging future’ but could ‘win local support’ and ‘improve their remit’ if they focused on ‘engaging with tenants’.  Areas Mr Foster called on ALMOs to explore included working to help implement the government’s delayed green deal retrofit plan and encouraging community groups to take on the right to bid for community assets or the delivery of some services.  ‘There is also the neighbourhood planning agenda and helping facilitate development on local sites where appropriate. Then there is neighbourhood budgeting for things like adult social care,’ he added. ‘Tenants could be encouraged to explore all these areas through ALMOs.’  Read more on Inside Housing.

Social Landlords Miss Out On Energy Schemes

The government has not properly recognised the role social landlords can play in cutting fuel poverty through schemes to promote renewable power generation, a report has found.  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study, Renewable energy: getting the benefits right for social housing, argues the design of mechanisms such as the feed-in tariff were based around economic rather than social demands, meaning the social housing sector failed to take advantage of the scheme. The JRF report states: ‘Only a minority of social landlords were then able to progress. Continuing uncertainty over future rates has left most schemes either abandoned or postponed indefinitely.’  The report calls for more certainty for the FIT and similar mechanisms such as the renewable heat incentive so landlords can ‘make long-term plans about retrofit strategies with confidence’.  Download a copy of the report from the JRF website.

NHF Secures Crucial Green Deal Win

The National Housing Federation has welcomed Government changes to the Green Deal that will allow the retrofit initiative to work better for the social housing sector and its residents.  In addition to confirming that more costly–to-treat properties will be eligible for Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding, the Government is encouraging a more open and transparent approach to funding bids and has simplified some of the proposed Green Deal bureaucracy.  The Federation believes the Government’s concessions could help secure big cuts in carbon and tenants’ energy bills.  Read more on the NHF website.

How Can Housing Make The Most Of The Green Deal?

With months to go until the launch of the Green Deal, social landlords are preparing to make use of the government scheme that has promised to revolutionise the energy efficiency of the nation's homes.  The Green Deal will remove the upfront cost of installing energy efficient technologies, with residents paying off the balance through an increase in energy bills under a "golden rule" where the additional charge will not exceed the expected savings.  The scheme aims to retrofit 14m homes by 2020, cut carbon emissions from the UK's housing stock by 29% and generate £7bn of investment, creating up to 250,000 new jobs.  The initial response to the Green Deal was a combination of excitement, caution and confusion. The fund offered the chance for housing providers to improve the quality of their stock, tackle fuel poverty and mark out the social housing sector's place at the forefront of sustainability.  But there are reservations over how the deal will be implemented, questions about the practicalities of major retrofit programmes left unanswered, and further confusion prompted by coalition cuts to the Feed-in tariffs (Fits) scheme.  How housing can make the most of the Green Deal was the subject of a Guardian discussion. Read what the experts had to say on the Guardian website.

Green Deal Could Attract £12 Billion to Social Housing Sector

The government’s flagship green deal could see £12 billion invested into the UK’s social housing stock. Figures in a report prepared by the National Housing Federation and green consultancy Camco reveal that social housing could be worth 11 per cent of the overall green deal retrofit market. However the report, which is due to be published shortly, also casts doubt on the scheme’s ability to meet the government target of cutting carbon emissions from social housing by 80 per cent by 2050. It suggests the maximum potential cut from social homes that the green deal could achieve in its current form is 21 per cent. Under the green deal, which kicks off in 2012, private and social landlords will be able to carry out energy efficiency works - the cost of which will be recouped through savings on energy bills. The NHF report predicts that by 2020, social landlords will have been able to retrofit a quarter of their homes using green deal finance but may only achieve a 4 per cent reduction in carbon emissions - although this could increase if tenants live greener lifestyles. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Launches £100m Retrofit Solar Energy Scheme

Phase one of a scheme, which will lead to at least 10,000 homes in Birmingham benefiting from a retrofit energy efficiency upgrade, has swung into full gear as dozens of high-tech solar panels begin being fitted to homes and businesses. Eventually, councillors hope to extend the programme to 420,000 owner-occupied and privately-rented homes. Residents are already seeing the benefits from Birmingham City Council’s ‘Birmingham Energy Savers’ which will see improved insulation and new environmentally friendly means of energy production fitted to thousands of private and council owned homes. The initial phase of the scheme is being funded by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, and targets vulnerable families in target areas for significant energy improvements. For a typical family household this will lead to savings of hundreds of pounds per year off fuel bills, as well as drastically reducing a household’s carbon footprint.  The project will also create and provide training and protect jobs, and support the growth of green businesses in the city.  To find details of how this will be funded and a link to the Energy Savers website, go to the Birmingham City Council website.

Just 13% of Landlords Have Retrofit Plans

Only a handful of social landlords have drawn up official plans to retrofit their stock, a survey has discovered.  Academics at the University of Salford asked 134 social landlords about their plans to improve the sustainability of their housing stock and discovered just 13 per cent had a strategic plan for making their homes more energy efficient.  A quarter of those questioned will not have a retrofit strategy in place until 2012 to 2015 or later.  The majority of landlords - 87 per cent - said a lack of funding for retrofit was the main reason why their projects were slow to take off.  Read more on Inside Housing.

 

Survey Uncovers New Problems for Retrofit

One of the country’s leading sustainable housing associations has discovered it can cost-effectively retrofit less than 3 per cent of its properties. A study by Sunderland-based landlord Gentoo found only 40 out of 1,500 homes could be fully retrofitted cost-effectively with insulation and microgeneration technology. Gentoo had selected around 1,500 homes which were due for refurbishment under the housing association’s decent homes plus scheme. The study aimed to discover how difficult it was to install solar thermal panels, A-rated condensing combination boilers, energy-efficient showers and double-glazing into social homes at a relatively low cost. The target was less than £10,000 per house. Staff studying the research at Gentoo were astonished to discover that such a small number of the homes were eligible for full retrofits. Read all the details on the Inside Housing website by clicking on the logo below.

Parties Promise Green Retrofit Schemes

The Liberal Democrats and Labour have launched mini ‘green manifestos’ which commit both parties to national programmes of energy efficient retrofits. Labour’s mini-manifesto reiterates the party’s plans for a warm homes standard for social housing, which would provide 100 per cent subsidised retrofit work for tenants. The Liberal Democrats have promised to launch a national programme to insulate more homes, paid for with savings from lower energy bills, and change building regulations to improve the energy efficiency of new homes. Read more on the Inside Housing website by clicking on the logo below.

Homes Set For Trailblazing Eco Makeovers

Rotherham residents are among the first in the country to benefit from thousands of pounds worth of refurbishment works, thanks to a major government initiative. Six council tenants will see home improvements carried out to improve energy efficiency, including improvements to insulation using sustainable products such as paper, wood fibre insulation and reducing fuel consumption by installing solar thermal heating systems, PassivHaus heating systems and many other environmentally friendly products as part of the £17 million ‘Retrofit for the Future’ competition. Bramall Construction will carry out the work in partnership with the local ALMO, 2010 Rotherham, after being awarded £150,000 funding in the competition. ‘Retrofit for the Future’ was launched by the Technology Strategy Board, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with the aim of bringing existing housing up to excellent environmentally friendly standards. Read the full story on the 24dash website.

Social Housing Projects to Share £17 Million Funding

Eighty-seven social housing projects across the UK are set to benefit from a share of £17 million of government funding to test low carbon building technology, Science Minister Lord Drayson and Housing Minister John Healey have announced. The programme, entitled ‘Retrofit for the Future’, is the first of its kind in the UK, and will see social housing units across the country retrofitted with new, innovative technologies. Understanding and implementing best practice retrofitting is key to meeting the government’s CO2 reduction target of 80% by 2050. The results of the projects will be shared to help show how the UK’s current housing stock could be made more energy efficient. The retrofit prototypes will each receive an average of £142,000 to demonstrate deep cuts in carbon emissions and exemplar energy efficient measures in UK social housing. Read the full story on the 24dash website.

Housing Experts Give Government Advice On Going Green

Housing experts will present a report to Government on how to slash carbon emissions by retrofitting green technology to current social housing. The Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP) will present the Moving Beyond Decent Homes Standard: Creating the low carbon standard for social housing to the Beyond Decent Homes Select Committee at the House of Commons. It sets out a new standard for low carbon social housing, based on the best improvement options for different house types. Find more details on the 24dash website