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DESNZ minister promises to prioritise social homes as part of £6.6bn retrofit plan
Peckham MP Miatta Fahnbulleh told delegates at a conference in Liverpool that the government will look to prioritise social housing as part of its £6.6bn retrofit agenda.
Ms Fahnbulleh was speaking during the inaugural Housing Community Summit in Liverpool, a joint event by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation, today.
Sir Keir Starmer’s general election manifesto pledged to invest an extra £6.6bn over the next parliament to retrofit five million homes of all tenures, doubling the previous planned government investment.
Ms Fahnbulleh, minister for energy consumers in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), said: “There is an absolute imperative for us to prioritise the upgrade of social and council homes so that households that are feeling the squeeze the most harshly benefit from our warm homes plan early.
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“So we are clear that we need to work hand in glove with housing associations, with councils, with combined authorities, with mayors to deliver this, taking an area-based approach, aligning the need to maintain, improve and renew our social housing stock with the need to upgrade and decarbonise our homes. And if we get this right, the impact will be huge.”
Elsewhere in her speech, the DESNZ minister outlined how the government will deliver warmer homes that are cheaper to run by offering grants and low-interest loans to help people insulate their homes, and to help them adopt low-carbon heating and to put in place the range of improvements they need.
She also reiterated an earlier commitment made by her party last month to introduce minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector by 2030.
Ms Fahnbulleh said: “We are determined to move at pace, you know, we’ve got to work straight away to ensure that some of our current schemes, including the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), and the Home Upgrade grant for energy saving upgrades.”
In a deep dive into the SHDF, published today, Inside Housing asked housing associations about their experience of this net zero policy on the eve of the next, and largest, wave of the fund. The sector shared its thoughts about how you can make net zero happen in practice.
Retrofit was high on the agenda in a number of conference sessions, and Ms Fahnbulleh had been at the launch of an earlier initiative aimed at “revolutionising the housing sector” by delivering modern methods of construction homes with zero energy bills, which was launched by Liverpool City Region (LCR) mayor Steve Rotheram.
The ‘Future Homes LCR’ scheme, a public-private alliance which aims to accelerate the development of ultra-low-carbon housing across the region, was revealed at the Housing Community Summit in Liverpool earlier today.
It was marked with a specially constructed, two-storey, zero-carbon house built on the waterfront using offsite construction.
The initiative brings together local experts in modular housing construction and national suppliers to support councils and social housing providers in addressing both housing shortages and labour challenges.
It is hoped the alliance will help the LCR meet its target of building 83,000 new homes by 2040.
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