Government’s £3bn Green Homes Grant scheme launched
The government has launched its £3bn Green Homes Grant scheme aimed at boosting the energy efficiency of homes, with a £50m pot set aside to retrofit council homes.
The Green Homes Grant fund, which opens today, was first announced in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Summer Statement and will see an overall £3bn spent on upgrading homes, schools and hospitals across England. It is part of efforts to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
This includes a plan to retrofit around 2,200 social homes with an Energy Performance Certificate rating of D or below to help cut energy bills. Measures will include floor and wall insulation and low-carbon heating.
The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator is a £50m fund open to local authorities, including combined authorities, to be used for their retained social housing stock or for former council homes transferred to housing associations.
The funds will be distributed in “late 2020”, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.
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The money comes on top of an initial £200m allocated to councils to hand out to landlords last month under the Green Homes Grant. This funding has been made available for all tenure types, including private and social landlords.
Under the wider scheme, private homeowners and landlords can apply for vouchers of up to £5,000 towards the cost of making their homes more energy efficient.
Low-income households can get 100% of the costs of work covered up to £10,000.
The government claims more than 600,000 homes across England will save up to £600 a year on energy bills as a result. Overall it will support 100,000 jobs in green construction, BEIS said.
Mr Sunak said: “We promised to support jobs and protect the environment – and the Green Homes Grant delivers on this. We’re giving homeowners, landlords and local authorities the funding they need to hire local tradespeople and make our homes more energy efficient.”
