Opinion
Who will pay?
Retrofitting homes has to become a major part of the green agenda, but we lack national leadership on standards and funding, argues social housing developer Jeffrey Adams
H
ousing will continue to be one of the pressing issues facing the new government. The need for more new homes is paramount, but there is also the urgent requirement to save energy
and reduce fuel bills by updating the majority of our older social housing stock. Social housing tenants are at the head of the queue in the fuel poverty stakes. The majority of older homes are poorly insulated, with costly, inefficient heating systems. As energy costs soar, social housing tenants face massive fuel bills in proportion to their incomes. For a substantial number of tenants, these bills are being paid for from the public purse. There are seven million social housing properties nationwide. The widespread implementation of low- carbon refurbishment could wipe millions of tonnes off the country’s carbon footprint each year and hundreds of pounds off the average home’s fuel bill. There is an unprecedented level of interest in low-
carbon retrofitting and a great deal of competition to be at the cutting edge. There must be more than 100 exemplar schemes nationwide, by local authorities, housing associations and developers, all costing in excess of £100,000. Without wanting to put the brakes on the green stampede, we need to ask: who will pay? As public sector cuts take effect, it may be tempting to
trim the budgets for social housing refurbishment and retrofitting. However, a more wide-ranging and effective solution is needed. United House has been lobbying the government for two years to take the lead on retrofitting social housing on a national scale – and to aim at realistic and cost-effective targets of 50 per cent carbon reduction, which can be delivered at a much lower cost than 70 per cent or 80 per cent reductions. Most properties will need major refurbishment and repairs twice in the next 40 years. We suggest a 50 per cent low-carbon refurbishment,
then completion of the work later when technology becomes cheaper and renewables will be more cost- effective. So who will pay? The way forward has to be through PFI (private finance initiative) or PPP (public private partnership) funding. United House has already demonstrated that this is a viable option. Partners for Improvement in Camden, a 50:50 partnership
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between Bank of Scotland Corporate and United House Solutions Limited, has delivered a £370m capital works refurbishment project of five 1960s tower blocks to budget and ahead of schedule. Now we are about to undertake the largest single
retrofitting contract of social housing in Islington through a PFI initiative – a low-carbon refurbishment with the tenants in place that will save up to £300 a year in individual fuel bills. These are snapshots of what
The industry needs a green
can be done, but funding is not the only issue. The industry needs a green champion to clarify requirements and standards. Unlike the Code for Sustainable Homes, there is no code for retrofitting. This could be a role for BRE, but it will need the government’s backing. We also need incentives for registered social landlords (RSL) to pay for the retrofitting. Currently, the RSL foots the bill while the tenant benefits from lower fuel charges. RSLs could benefit from feed-in tariffs (FiTs). The government needs to build in the returns from FiTs as part of a wider incentivisation programme to help RSLs pay for retrofitting. With a robust code and private sector funding in
place, the next step would be to fine-tune the process to deliver retrofitting on a major scale. In the 1970s, United House developed a four-day package to upgrade council housing, providing a new kitchen, bathroom, central heating, re-wiring and redecoration, while the tenant was in place. We worked with the Greater London Council to upgrade hundreds of thousands of homes. The key was volume. With a government commitment to retrofitting, a low-carbon refurbishment package on a nationwide scale could be implemented that would benefit the social landlords, the private sector and, most important of all, the tenant. l
Jeffrey Adams is chief executive of housebuilder, United House Group.
champion to clarify requirements and standards
June 2010 CIBSE Journal
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