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Researchers say charities have been making ‘significant efforts’ to improve representation of people in other countries

Zack Polanski, a Green Party London Assembly Member, passed a motion calling on London’s Mayor to prioritise training workers with the skills to upgrade homes across the capital city.

Every winter, the number of people whose health drastically deteriorates due to living in a cold and damp home grows greater. However. earlier this month, charity End Fuel Poverty, warned that this issue has gotten out of hand as a result of the current cost-of-living crisis – people’s energy bills are so high they can’t afford to turn on their heating.

Research from the charity has found that as many as 8.2 million adults in the UK are living in cold or damp homes, which can cause respiratory conditions, cardiovascular diseases, poor mental health, dementia, and hypothermia.

In a bid to protect individuals living in London, Zack Polanski has recently proposed and passed a motion with unanimous support that will help inform workers on how homes need to be developed to ensure people’s safety.

In addition, the motion also asks the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to explore all potential sources of income that could be put toward repairs, including a call for the Government to provide ongoing, unrestricted funding.

‘Retrofitting is a triple win: it creates good green jobs, lowers emissions, and reduces bills,’ Zack said. ‘For years, I have challenged the Mayor on our failure to train Londoners to insulate our own homes.’

Zack added: ‘I’m delighted that the assembly passed my motion unanimously – but now we need action from the Mayor. I look forward to seeing a real funding commitment from the Mayor to tackle the climate and economic crisis in our city.’

The full text of the motion proposed by Zack Polanski AM can be found here.

Image: Gleren Meneghin

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Research will gather the information needed to plan and fund an improvement programme which regularly invests £10m per year in the modernisation of the council’s 7,400 homes.

The City of York Council has announced they are about to start looking at every single one of their council properties through a stock condition survey to ensure nobody is left living in an unhabitable environment.

Data on all the homes will be used to understand which properties need reroofing, for example, or need new doors. In addition, the survey will also help develop efficient programmes of work and will be used as evidence for funding applications to assist greater levels of investment.

Councillor Michael Pavlovic, executive member for housing at City of York Council, said: ‘York’s council homes have been built over the past 100 years in many different styles and use a range of construction methods. All the information we gather from this survey, will be used to plan how a comprehensive programme which details how the homes can be modernised.

‘This is the first time we have surveyed all of our housing stock in one project and is a major exercise, which requires access to every home. We want to thank our customers in advance for their support with this work and allowing access to their homes for the surveyors. It will all help us improve the way we work and, ultimately, the quality of the homes we provide.’

In addition, information from the survey will help improve services and support local residents on a day-to-day basis. By knowing more about the condition and fittings in residents’ homes, they can be repaired more promptly and efficiently. Any major health and safety issues that are identified will be addressed straight away. 

Image: City of York Council

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The energy minister has accused ‘vested interests’ of ‘funding campaigns of misinformation’ on heat pumps despite them being recommended to make homes more energy efficient.

Back in 2021 the UK government set out plans to offer £5,000 grants to help 90,0000 households install home heat pumps, and other low-carbon heating systems, over the next three years as part of its plan to cut Britain’s reliance on fossil fuel heating.

However, in a recent discussion with Tom Heap – the presenter of The Climate Show – energy minister Lord Callanan explained that a vast number of ‘people have a vested interest in maintaining our current supplies of gas boilers and the like’.

Against this backdrop, Tom has explored all the potential issues surrounding heat pumps, machines that run on electricity rather than gas, and spoke to installers, industry insiders and ministers to confirm or debunk them.

Within this particular episode of The Climate Show, Tom visited a home in surrey where a gas boiler was being replaced for a heat pump. After the government grant, the cost of the pump, water tank, new radiators and extra insulation totalled at £6,500 – a price that is out of reach for many, especially considering the UK is still in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

As the cost of installing a heat pump is so high it has caused many to reject the idea. Mike Foster from the Energy and Utilities Alliance, a trade body which represents gas boiler companies and lobbies on their behalf, said: ‘If we alienate the consumer on the journey to net zero, my fear and the fear of people in organisations like mine is that we’ll fail to get to net zero, and that will be the biggest crime.’

In spite of this, Lord Callahan has claimed the cost of swapping gas for heat pumps is already coming down. He said: ‘Fairly soon, as prices come down, the installation routine becomes more efficient, the prices will be very low.’

The UK had a record year for heat pump installations last year, with 35,000 put into our homes. But that’s still a fraction of the 600,000 a year the government is targeting by 2028.

Another concern surrounding heat pumps is that they don’t work as well in cold weather. However, the technologies are very common in Scandinavian countries. In Sweden they make up more than half of all home heating systems.

‘In Sweden, heat pumps have been powering our homes for decades and work perfectly well in extremely cold climates,’ Daniel Särefjord, Aira UK CEO said. ‘At Aira, we understand that heat pumps are still a relatively new technology for UK households, with 1% penetration across the country, but we’re working hard to break through the misinformation and to educate the public about the cost saving and environmental benefits of heat pumps.’

Daniel added: ‘Government research shows that nearly every UK home is suitable for a heat pump – a clean energy solution that is 4x more efficient than a gas boiler and will lower energy bills by 25% and household carbon emissions by at least 75%.

‘That’s why we’re keen to meet as many people as we can, to help guide well-informed decision making when it comes to upgrading or replacing a fossil fuel-based boiler with an alternative solution.’

Image: Shutterstock 

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Levelling up secretary Michael Gove has recently expressed his relief that more companies are cutting their contracts with Kingspan as he blames the firm for giving capitalism ‘a bad name’.

Last week, Ulster’s Rugby became the latest team to announce they will be terminating their sponsorship deal with Kingspan, an Irish-based insulation company whose products were used in Grenfell towers, a West London tower block which burned down in 2017 and killed over 70 people.

Since the tragedy occurred, ministers and various housing organisations have pledged to use building materials that are far less flammable to avoid anything like it ever happening again.

However, Kingspan has long said that in K15 insulation product made up only 5% of the insulation in the tower block and was used without its recommendation. The organisation has also claimed that the exterior cladding, which it did not manufacture, was deemed by the inquiry to be the ‘principal reason’ for how quickly the fire spread.

But Michael Gove told BBC Northern Ireland that Kingspan have continuously ‘evaded their responsibilities’.

‘We know that there are developers, people who were actually responsible for buildings, who have contributed (to remediation works) and I’m grateful to them and grateful to builders and developers across the United Kingdom for making a contribution.’ Mr Gove said. ‘But Kingspan continue, I’m afraid, to evade their responsibilities.’

Mr Gove added: ‘And the idea that they can say that their products were used inappropriately, I’m afraid, is part of a pattern of behaviour on their part where they will not fully acknowledge their responsibility to the victims of this tragedy.’

In response to this, a spokesperson for Kingspan said: ‘Our K15 product continues to be safely used in multiple systems across the UK in compliance with building regulations and can be safely retained in appropriate cladding systems in line with guidance sponsored by the UK government.

‘What is now urgently required is meaningful engagement with product manufacturers to quickly establish an appropriate industry-wide funding mechanism that can be implemented, so homeowners can be safe in their homes.’

The organisation has claimed they have been campaigning for this since February 2022.

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The issue of nutrient neutrality has become a significant hurdle, leading to a backlog of 150,000 homes caught up in the planning system. If each new development had included a provision for 30% affordable homes, we could have seen an increase of at least 45,000 affordable homes. And such a boost would have greatly helped in alleviating the annual net loss of 14,000 social rent homes that we have been experiencing over the last 12 years. 

The problem is generated primarily by agricultural processes and the regulation of water companies. But while new housing development accounts for less than 1% of the problem, it has been burdened with the responsibility to address this issue. The imposed requirements for mitigation phosphates and nitrates have hindered the granting of planning permission, leading to a significant shortage in housing supply. This issue has also become highly political. The government sells the solution as the removal of another EU-era rule and the continuation of Brexit; while environmental objectors conflate the issue, compounded by the public scrutiny that water companies are facing for their pollution practices. In this article, we will delve into the repercussions of the nutrient neutrality problem for the development industry and the unanswered questions surrounding its resolution.

It all began four years ago, when Natural England sent letters to several local planning authorities, stating that housing developments could not proceed if they did not implement mitigation for water neutrality. As discussed above, this requirement has caused numerous applications for housing development to become ‘stuck’ in the system, leading to the estimated backlog of 150,000 homes. The industry has lobbied the government for a resolution and sought to identify practical solutions to the issue. Initially, this led to the introduction of nutrient credit schemes, whereby local authorities would identify and purchase land for mitigation for the planting of wetlands and sell ‘mitigation credits’ to developers. What we found, was that this took local authorities a very long time to set up, and the few credit schemes that were running only provided a limited number of credits for sale. In short, this was not a success. Eventually, the government rightly concluded that legislation was needed to remove the planning system from the problem – it is, after all, the responsibility of the water industry to regulate. This resulted in the proposed amendments to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) in August 2023. However, while it was assumed these amendments would be supported, they were voted down by Labour peers in the House of Lords. The LURB has now received Royal Assent, leaving the government little time to enact secondary legalisation before the next General Election.

There was a possibility that a new Bill addressing nutrient neutrality would be introduced in the King’s speech on 7th November, but in late October unconfirmed media reports stated that Michael Gove is now not planning to bring forward fresh legislation to tackle the issue. This is despite having told a fringe event at the Conservative Party just days previously that he wanted the rules to be scrapped ‘at the first available opportunity’.

Even were a new Bill to be introduced in the King’s Speech, the limited timeframe before the next general election may, again, hinder the enactment of secondary legislation. It also remains unclear how the Labour party would approach this problem if they were to form the next UK government, adding further uncertainty to the scenario.

As it stands, no progress has been made, and the approximately 45,000 affordable homes stuck in planning limbo continue to linger. The cost of implementing mitigation measures is financially burdensome for developers, leading to further hesitancy in committing to these measures. Local planning authorities continue to require expensive mitigation which exacerbates the delay in housing delivery. Furthermore, the uncertainty surrounding the potential scrapping of mitigation measures creates an unfavourable environment for developers and the dilapidating trust in the system may only fall further if developers who have already paid for phosphate mitigation face the possibility of its elimination through subsequent legislation.

Unfortunately, the resolution of the nutrient neutrality problem may not occur until 2030 when the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act imposes a new duty on water companies to upgrade wastewater treatment areas. In the meantime, the backlog of housing sites has meant that local authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to identify a short-term housing land supply, with many delivering less than the required five years. This prolonged timeline only exacerbates the housing crisis and our reliance on an appeal-based, rather than a plan-led system.

The nutrient neutrality issue has caused significant setbacks in the planning system, particularly concerning new housing development and the recent rejection of amendments to the LURB and the likely omission of a new Bill in the King’s Speech has left us at square one, with no immediate solution in sight.

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Perenna has received grant funding to help launch its Perenna Retrofit Mortgage product. The scheme aims to solve the biggest barriers to decarbonising UK properties and encourage people to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes. 

According to new research from the UK Green Building council, if homes in the UK are to become energy efficient almost all of them will need some sort of retrofit – this is equivalent to 29 million properties.

Against this backdrop, the Climate Change Committee estimates that an investment of about £250 billion will be needed to fully decarbonise homes by 2050.

However, to help kickstart this process, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero have provided a grant to Perenna, a leading mortgage advisement company, whose green mortgage strategy focuses on homes that need to be upgraded, rather than homes which are already energy efficient.

The organisation, which was founded in 2018, is set to offer consumers all the benefits of its flexible long-term fixed rate mortgage, launched in Q4 2023, with the additional benefits of a green rate discount being rewarded for lowering energy usage.

Customers who complete a qualifying retrofit will see their mortgage rate switched to a lower rate and will benefit from lower monthly payments for the rest of their term. 

As a result of this scheme, some people with larger mortgages could be saved over £60 per month, £720 per year, and £21,600 over 30 years, assuming they don’t remortgage.  

Arjan Verbeek, founder and CEO, Perenna said: ‘Perenna wants to change the narrative on renewable energy technologies. There are too many obstacles currently to retrofitting a property, with confusing offers and unclear steps on what to do. This needs to change if we want to solve one of the biggest challenges for achieving net zero.

‘We are delighted to be part of the Green Home Finance Accelerator and have the opportunity to work with Heatio and Energy Systems Catapult to pilot an innovative mortgage product that combines long term security with improvements in home energy efficiency.’

The project will last for 12 months and the consortium plans to launch its pilot in summer 2024. 

Image: Catherine Kay Greenup

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