Following the announcement by the Chancellor in the Summer
Economic Update of a new £50million Social Housing
Decarbonisation Fund, ARCH was invited, along with other sector
representative bodies, to attend a workshop organised by the
Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to
discuss the design of the Scheme.
The objective of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF)
is to support social landlords to demonstrate innovative approaches
to retrofitting social housing at scale.
The SHDF demonstrator project will be based on and upscale the
existing Whole House Retrofit (WHR) Innovation
Competition. £7.7m was awarded to 3 councils as part of
the WHR programme:
- London Borough of Sutton
- Nottingham City Council
- Cornwall Council
Summary details of the projects awarded funding under the Whole
House Retrofit Innovation Competition are available on the Government website.
The new SHDF demonstrator project is intended to be a short-term
investment with the aim of learning lessons and demonstrating
innovation for the wider Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund,
allocations for which will be determined at the forthcoming
Spending Review in the Autumn.
BEIS officials sought feedback on a number of key areas from the
Whole House Retrofit scheme, to take into consideration when
designing the SHDF demonstrator scheme. These areas included:
- The value of the max grant award
- The number of projects funded
- The minimum number of dwellings per project
- Cost reduction criteria
- Energy savings criteria
- Any other feedback/thoughts from attendees
Following this initial workshop BEIS officials will be working
on the policy design process of the SHDF demonstrator and the
feedback received will be considered throughout the policy design
process of the SHDF demonstrator.
It is understood BEIS plan on holding a formal supplier day for
the SHDF demonstrator in Autumn.
ARCH would be interested to hear from any member councils that
might be interested in applying for funding under the SHDF
demonstrator project. Please contact ARCH Chief Executive john.bibby@arch-housing.org.uk
Further detail of the Government's wider Clean
Growth Strategy is available on the Government
website.