NHC interviewed for BBC’s Politics North on the North’s ‘energy efficiency mountain to climb’

The NHC’s Brian Robson featured on the BBC’s Politics North (North East & Cumbria) programme in December, highlighting evidence from this year’s Northern Housing Monitor on the North’s poorly insulated and draughty homes which fall below the government’s EPC C benchmark for energy efficiency.

Speaking to the BBC’s Robert Cooper, Brian said: “We’ve got an energy efficiency mountain to climb in the North of England. We have 3.8million homes beneath the key energy performance certificate C benchmark”

“Sunderland cottages, Tyneside flats, those are typically the kind of homes that were built early in the last century or before that, and just weren’t built to today’s standards – so they’re not thermally efficient, they’re quite draughty and leaky, and those are the kind of homes we need to target with insulation schemes.”

Our latest Northern Housing Monitor report reveals that 3.8m homes in the North fall beneath the key energy efficiency standard of EPC C. Residents in these homes will pay an average of £680 more this year than those in properly insulated homes. In November, the NHC called on the government to release the remaining £4 billion of energy efficiency commitments from the 2019 Conservative Manifesto to create a long-term programme of investment for homes across the North that are hit hardest by fuel poverty.

The programme also featured Karbon Homes’ ongoing Otterburn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund retrofit scheme – demonstrating the difference that investment can make. The programme is available to watch again via iPlayer.