Work to make homes across the West of England more energy efficient is to go ahead thanks to an allocation of £3million for a retrofitting project.
Air source heat pumps outside a home
The scheme is the first to benefit from the £50 million West of England Green Recovery Plan that was agreed earlier this month.
Emissions from homes are one of the largest sources of carbon entering the atmosphere.
250,000 homes in the region need to be retrofitted if the ambitious 2030 zero-carbon target is to be met.
At the current pace, it would take around 557 years to install all the required solid wall insulation and 857 years for the required heat pumps to meet net-zero.
A report commissioned by Metro Mayor Dan Norris identified three key ways the West of England can lead a giant push for green homes.
These include:
- Increasing the number of trained fitters and construction specialists to carry out the retrofit work needed.
- Equipping homeowners with better, unbiased information, on how to retrofit their homes.
- Providing certainly for the retrofit sector that currently operates in cycles of “boom and bust” as government grant schemes come and go.
The Combined Authority, led by Metro Mayor Dan Norris, is to put this into action with a Retrofit Step-Up programme followed by a long term Retrofit Accelerator.
Mr Norris said: “To date government programmes have been ineffective, short term and underfunded.
“Retrofitting is especially important for the West of England because we have so many beautiful houses from across the centuries.
“But as wonderful as they are, an Edwardian home in Bath, a Victorian one in Bristol or a white lias stone cottage in Somerset were not built with a climate emergency in mind!
“With gas, electricity and oil prices soaring too there is even more of an incentive to get insulating and to make our homes more energy efficient to cut those sky high energy bills.
“Under my leadership, the West of England will invest in skills backing the 23,000 new green jobs our region needs. We will provide clear advice for home owners and provide greater clarity to the industry.
“We will also be ready to bring national government funding to our amazing region.”
