Northern housing associations launch tenant climate jury
The Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) has launched a first-of-its-kind tenants’ jury to consider how residents, social landlords and others can tackle climate change.
The NHC said the concept is adapted from citizens’ juries and assemblies with participants selected at random to consider a specific issue before producing recommendations for policymakers.
The Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury will select 30 tenants from project partners Karbon Homes, Yorkshire Housing, Thirteen Group, Salix Homes and First Choice Homes Oldham.
In particular the jury will look at retrofitting to understand tenants’ preferences on how this should be undertaken in their homes.
Tenants will also have a chance to say what information they need before, during and after the retrofit process to use low-carbon heating technology confidently.
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The NHC said homes account for roughly 25% of the North’s carbon emission and it estimates more than one million social rented sector homes in the region will require green upgrades as the UK strives towards net zero.
As well as the tenant group, an oversight panel will be established, which will include Matt Harrison who leads the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Others on the panel include Affordable Housing Commission chair Lord Best, Tpas boss Jenny Osbourne and representatives from several local authorities and housing associations.
Tracy Harrison, chief executive of the NHC, said: “We want to put tenants at the heart of our work to make homes fit for the 21st century and we know that a positive tenant experience is a core part of successful and sustainable retrofit projects.
“Social housing is the perfect sector to lead on this; it is an early adopter of technology, landlords are owners and managers of stock at scale and they have a duty of care towards tenants.”
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