Visiting members’ sites across South Yorkshire with DESNZ

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This month we had a great day taking colleagues from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) around members’ sites across the South Yorkshire region – highlighting the fantastic work members are doing to install green home upgrades and meet the net zero challenge. DESNZ colleagues included Selvin Brown (Director for Net Zero Buildings, Domestic),  who is responsible for social housing energy efficiency funding programmes such as the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund (WH:SHF) – previously the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF).

The first visit of the day was in Sheffield where Sheffield City Council have used funding through the Home Upgrade Grant (HUG) 2 government funding scheme to improve the energy efficiency of homes with a range of measures including air source heat pumps, solar panels, internal wall insulation and loft insulation.

Next up was Sanctuary‘s homes in Shiregreen. Sanctuary has heavily invested in the community and used government SHDF funding to install solar PV and other measures to retrofit all homes in the area that are below EPC C.

We then had the opportunity to visit the Let Zero show home in Tinsley – South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority is leading on the experimental Let Zero project, which is funded by Innovate UK. The innovative project aims to create a One Stop Shop service model for retrofit tailored to the needs of the private rented sector, which can be replicated across the country.

Finally, we travelled to Maltby and East Herringthorpe to see the fantastic work Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is doing to meet net zero targets. In Maltby, we spoke to residents who had benefited from the Council’s large scale project to deliver green upgrades to homes across the area. The £4.4 million project has upgraded 130 homes and was part funded by the SHDF Wave 1.

In East Herringthorpe, we saw the Council’s ambitious new council homes project which have been built to high energy efficiency standards and meet the demand for accessible housing in the community.

It was great to speak to residents and see first-hand the work our members are doing to upgrade homes and meet net zero targets, while putting tenant engagement at the heart of projects. The visit illustrated to civil servants responsible for energy efficiency funding the scale of delivery and ambition of housing providers in the North.