Social landlords have a major role to play in using public money intelligently to help retrofit homes across the UK with energy-saving measures. In London, social housing makes up 26 per cent of the housing stock and we are looking to be at the forefront of reducing tenants’ energy bills, ease fuel poverty, tackle climate change and improve the quality of housing.
London’s housing sector accounts for 17.1 million tonnes of climate change emissions, more than a third of the capital’s overall carbon dioxide output. London mayor Boris Johnson has prioritised the development of a cost-effective model for retrofitting homes on an unprecedented scale. This is vital if we are to meet his 60 per cent carbon reduction target by 2025 and continue to lead the way on tackling climate change.
This is no easy task in a city of more than 7 million people, 3 million homes in 33 different boroughs with a cross-section of housing type and tenure. Seventy per cent of the city’s housing stock consists of so-called ‘hard to treat’ older buildings. Our solution is designed to be a hassle-free, zero up-front cost programme, which has been developed hand-in-hand with the London Development Agency, London Councils, London’s boroughs and the Energy Saving Trust.
Our targets are ambitious. We aim to provide a free carbon makeover to at least 200,000 homes by 2012 and 1.2 million by 2015. The programme was designed in consultation with delivery partners and other leading organisations in retrofit activity, such as Kirklees Council. The LDA has invested £9.5 million to part-fund the programme in every borough.
We have already conducted extensive trials to roadtest our concept. Nine boroughs are currently offering the service to 10,000 homes in the demonstration phase. The scheme operates on an area-by-area ‘door knocking’ basis, offering householders a survey by a fully trained energy assessor and installation of up to 15 ‘easy to install’ energy efficiency measures provided free of cost. The assessor will also suggest and book in other measures, such as loft and cavity wall insulation whenever possible, identifying subsidies for residents where appropriate. From 2012 onwards, the plan is to expand the programme to deliver measures such as solid wall insulation and renewable energy technology, while laying the groundwork for a pay as you save solution to deliver ‘whole-house’ measures.
By 2025, the programme aims to reduce carbon emissions by around 4 million tonnes per year. Our model aims to be more coherent and consistent, moving away from an approach that costs the householder money or requires them to seek the service themselves. It will simplify the process to enable people to ‘go green’, get better value for money from existing funds and improve the ability to attract more funds for retrofitting. Initially, this will come from programmes such as the carbon emissions reduction target programme, the community energy savings programme and warm front but then also from public and private sector investors.
The post-2012 CERT funding round will concentrate far more on social housing than before - a boost to the levels of funding available to social landlords. On top of that, the size of the overall social housing building stock in London offers opportunities to develop a shared portfolio of buildings for retrofitting on a sufficiently large scale to make it cost-effective and attractive to investors. We are also in the process of developing a London green fund to support a range of climate change programmes, including retrofitting.
We can only meet our tough targets to make homes energy efficient if social housing providers are leading the way. GLA is looking to work closely with all members of the industry to make this happen.
Isabel Dedring is advisor on the environment to mayor of London Boris Johnson
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