City wins funding to improve energy efficiency of council housing

The funding comes as the Government allocates £778 millions of funding to social landlords across the country as part of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Wave 2.1.

The project will see the retrofitting of 110 council homes from now up to 31 March 2025 and will be led by Southend-on-Sea City Council working in partnership with South Essex Homes and Morgan Sindall Property Services.

The work will focus on reducing the heating demand of some of the council’s most poorly insulated homes by using external wall insulation, loft insulation, improved glazing, energy efficient lighting, draught proofing, and ventilation improvements. Costing £2.3m overall, 50% of the project will be match funded from the council.

Cllr Ian Gilbert, cabinet member for regeneration and housing, says: “Winning this funding is fantastic news. This funding and the work it will allow us to take forward will play a good contribution to delivering our ambition of becoming a net zero carbon city by 2030. It will reduce carbon emissions, make these homes warmer and more energy efficient and help tackle fuel poverty in the City.

“Investing in some of our most poorly insulated homes which will not only improve those homes, but improve the comfort, health and wellbeing of those who live there too. We are always looking at what external funding we can apply for to carry out innovative projects like this, and I am delighted that through the hard work of officers, we have been able to win this funding.”

Following the works all of the homes will have reached an energy performance certificate rating of EPC C. All works will be delivered to the PAS 2035 standard to ensure that the works are of a very high quality and do not have any unintended consequences.

For more information on what retrofit is and why it is so important, you can visit our Climate Action website.

For more information on SHDF, please see this Gov.uk web page.