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National Housing Federation welcomes boost to Warm Homes Plan
The National Housing Federation (NHF) has welcomed the government’s latest announcement on the Warm Homes Plan, under which up to 60,000 social homes could receive energy-efficiency upgrades over the next year.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has confirmed that of the £3.4bn committed to the plan during the Autumn Budget at the end of October, £1bn has now been allocated for the 2025-26 financial year.
More than a third of this – £374m – will go into the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund, formerly known as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, targeted at bringing social homes up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C.
This is in addition to an estimated £600m to £700m in co-funding from social housing providers in 2025-26, the government’s statement added.
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Kate Henderson, chief executive of the NHF, said housing associations are “committed to playing their part in tackling the climate emergency and supporting the government to meet its net zero targets, through decarbonising their homes”.
She added: “We welcome the confirmation of the boost in funding, which is essential to this work, kick-starting the government’s Warm Homes Plan and helping tackle fuel poverty. The policy measures announced today will be essential to this shared mission, scaling the supply chain and driving down the costs of the clean, efficient home heating systems of the future.”
Ms Henderson said the NHF is looking forward to working with the government on the design of the fuller Warm Homes Plan ahead of the major Spending Review being completed in spring 2025.
In June, ahead of the general election that brought Labour into power, the NHF called on the party to bring in long-term funding for decarbonisation and retrofit, to enable all homes to meet net zero by 2050.
This followed a downgrade in February of the proposed targets under the Warm Homes Plan, including from insulating 19 million homes over a decade to covering five million over five years.
Besides the £374m targeting social housing, a further £88m is earmarked in the latest announcement for the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which enables councils to deliver energy-efficiency and low-carbon heating upgrades to low-income homes in England. The government said this could deliver improvements to up to 9,000 homes.
An extra £30m has been made available this financial year for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which delivers grants of £7,500 to make heat pumps more affordable. The budget for this scheme has also been increased to £295m for 2025-26.
Taking into account its own core funding, social landlords’ commitments and supplier obligations, the government said it expects to oversee £3.2bn investment in warmer homes across 2025-26, supporting improvements for up to 300,000 households.
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