Councils gain grants to scale up green home upgrades

Seven leading local authorities’ efforts to make homes in their areas greener and more energy efficient have been boosted, with the award of £423,080 in grant funding from the MCS Foundation.

Having invited local authorities to bid for funding to support their retrofitting ambitions, the MCS Foundation selected the most promising programmes to award grant funding and expert advice.

Among the projects to receive cash are council-led efforts to train up a generation of retrofit workers to meet skills gaps in Neath Port Talbot. The need for more skilled workers to insulate and install renewable energy in homes is a key priority for the retrofit industry, and Neath Port Talbot’s work with colleges to provide further and vocational education courses in this sector is a model that other councils can adopt.

While Neath Port Talbot is supporting supply-side development, a partnership of Devon councils is addressing a barrier to demand, by helping homeowners access advice on how to go about retrofitting their home and what funding is available to them. The Energy Saving Devon programme will also include support for quality assurance so that consumers can have confidence in the traders they use. A partnership of Somerset councils is similarly developing a programme to provide advice to households looking to improve their home, as is Stroud District Council through its Low-Carbon Communities project.

Leeds and Manchester City Councils are translating green ambitions into schemes designed to retrofit entire areas of their cities. Working with the private sector and with community interest companies respectively, these two councils are finding channels for 0% loans and other innovative financing options to be offered to home-owners wishing to retrofit their homes. Oxford City Council, meanwhile, is piloting ways to capitalise on high levels of community engagement in particular areas of the city to support retrofitting at scale.

The MCS Foundation’s grants for these projects covering skills, consumer advice, and retrofitting finance will help overcome some of the key barriers to retrofitting at a local level, and enable councils to begin scaling up their crucial work to upgrade homes.

The MCS Foundation will be an active partner to the local authorities, providing knowledge, advice and support, and helping to share learning, including through a Local Authority Retrofit Forum, jointly run with the UK Green Building Council.

Alastair Mumford, programme director at the MCS Foundation, said: “Many councils rightly see retrofitting homes as a top priority for tackling fuel poverty and the climate emergency. Yet, equally, many councils currently lack the capacity to scale up retrofitting programmes and help homeowners green their homes.

“This grant funding round from the MCS Foundation is a step towards bridging the gap between ambition and delivery. To achieve retrofitting at scale, we will need far greater funding and support from both public and private sectors.”

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