‘Grants alone won’t work’: councils to reconsider retrofit plans to help the environment

A new report from Lendology CIC has claimed the ‘UK’s ageing houses are among the leakiest in Europe’, forcing councils to reconsider how they will go about reducing carbon emissions and health risks arising from the sector.

The report, which was published last week by Lendology CIC, a Social Enterprise Lender, includes a survey of 50 councils across the UK.

Findings show that 90% of councils have set carbon reduction targets to tackle climate change, however only 46% considered emissions from private housing, with 61% focusing on the social housing sector.

Against this backdrop, the Energy Saving Trust reported this month that 21% of all UK carbon emissions comes from the housing sector – a higher figure than for cars. Following this, according to the English Housing Survey, 83% of the total housing stock in England is made up of private homes, suggesting more work needs to be done to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Additionally, findings from the report discovered that 22% of councils have no plans to support the retrofit of private housing, although 11% have plans to develop this – in total, 37% already have a programme in place.

Emma Lower, Chief Executive of Lendology, said: ‘The UK has an unfortunate twin challenge; we have some of the leakiest houses in Europe, and an ageing population increasingly needing warmer homes to protect their health and wellbeing. We also know that councils’ budgets are very stretched, and our survey reiterates that funding is the biggest barrier to implementing retrofitting strategies. 

‘This means that councils cannot rely on a grant-based offer to their residents. As well as often being difficult for residents to navigate, the level of grants available is simply inadequate on their own to tackle the scale of this problem. 

‘It’s good to see our survey find that nearly 30% of councils considering either loans, or a mixture of grants and loans, as a solution to the problem, but that percentage simply has to grow in order for councils to meet their goals.’

While the majority of UK councils have declared a climate emergency, in many cases the action they have taken has been limited to changes to their own offices and owned buildings. Local authorities have added electric cars to their vehicle fleet and have commenced on the early stages of considering wider implications.

An example of this includes South Gloucestershire Council as a spokesperson for the local authority has said: ‘South Gloucestershire Council has worked with Lendology for over 18 years to provide low interest flexible loans to residents to make their properties warmer, safer, healthier, and more suitable for their needs.

‘We support loans for all aspects of home energy improvements including heating, insulation, and the installation of climate friendly renewable technologies. Loans have also been used to support residents through our fuel poverty work delivered through our Warm and Well programme for over 20 years.’

However, according to the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), the UK needs to retrofit one million homes each year between now and 2050 in order to achieve net-zero. The report also outlines that common illnesses caused by cold homes in the winter costs the NHS around £1.4bn every year.

Jo Wheeler, Senior Manager for Retrofit and Local Policy at UKGBC, said in the report that public awareness of retrofitting is still low, and that most private owners ‘don’t have the support and advice they desperately need’. 

She added: ‘Public subsidy will be necessary for some as many people will need help to meet the costs of retrofit; but many others would be able to afford it if they could access the right finance mechanisms. So private sector lending initiatives will provide a large part of the answer.’

Lendology CIC is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for credit regulated activities. Since 2005, the organisation have lent over £20m to various homeowners with an aim to helping individuals making their homes more energy efficient.

Within the report that was published by Lendology, the company have drawn on findings from the latest English Housing Survey (EHS) which shows that 60% of owner occupiers are not working, an in many cases these will be of the older generation. This means they may have less money to pay for retrofitting services.

In addition, the EHS displays that 96% of homeowners are concerned about their home’s energy efficiency – with the climate crisis showing no evidence of improving and the costs of inflation continuing to soar, more work needs to be done to ensure people can live in safe and sustainable properties.

Image: Ozgu Ozden and Callum Hill