The NHC joins the National Housing Federation and Homes for the North at the North West CEO Sustainability Forum

On 26th May, we joined with the National Housing Federation and Homes for the North in Manchester to bring together housing leaders in the region to look at housing decarbonisation and the steps needed leading up to 2030 to turn theory into reality. 

Charlie Norman, Chief Executive of MSV, chaired the first half of the session and began by welcoming delegates and outlining the huge challenge, but accompanying huge opportunities, ahead for the sector on this agenda. The NHC’s Chief Executive, Tracy Harrison, then set out the scale of the challenge for the North West: 28% of the region’s carbon emissions are attributable to homes. Tracy referenced the Northern Housing Monitor findings that we need to ramp up retrofit in the North West to upgrade 125,000 homes per year to achieve energy efficiency targets. This could be transformational for communities, and Tracy said we need to turn our steps into strides and work together to cut carbon, lower energy bills and bring new jobs to the area. 

 Engaging, collaborating and supporting tenants on sustainability 

 The first session of the day explored tenant engagement. Tracy Harrison began by stating working with tenants is absolutely central to sustainability strategies and outlined the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury’s key recommendations to the sector. The Jury worked together to produce a set of recommendations about how to tackle climate change in our homes and neighbourhoods, including around ensuring high retrofit standards, transparent communication with tenants, expanding climate education within organisations and amongst tenants, and around decarbonisation’s role in wider regeneration. You can see the full report here. 

 Sue Sutton, Chief Executive of Salix Homes, went on to illustrate the vital importance of getting communication with tenants right at the outset. Sue said we must be clear on our offer to tenants and be able to communicate it well, making sure we can address tenants’ queries from the beginning. Jenny Osbourne, TPAS Chief Executive, explained the sector needs to get repairs and maintenance services right now to build trust with tenants as a first step. Jenny said this is critical to getting tenants on board with net zero. Open and regular communication about retrofitting plans and how they fit into the wider neighbourhood is also key, as the Tenant Jury suggested, and these plans must work for everyone from the beginning.  

 There was discussion with delegates around tenant concerns about being the ‘guinea pigs’ for different energy efficiency measures and low carbon heat technologies, illustrating that the tenant engagement aspect of the decarbonisation agenda should not be understated. This was considered a reframing issue by many, and perceptions can be challenged by communicating the benefits clearly to relieve anxieties. The Tenant Jury recognised their role in going first on this work but they were happy to do so as long as providers were open to learning lessons and adapting along the way. Delegates also noted links here to the current cost-of-living crisis and the potential now to pivot the conversation to cost-savings. 

How do we make the most of ‘green’ training and job opportunities, for our  

employees, tenants and communities? 

 The second session of the day considered the green skills and jobs available to communities through retrofit. Lynsey Sweeney, Managing Director of Communities that Work, opened by saying there are currently huge pressures across the labour market caused by a range of issues from Brexit, younger retirees and people staying in education longer. Lynsey noted there is a moral imperative involved in the green agenda to ensure communities are supported and carbon-heavy jobs are replaced with new opportunities. Lynsey argued there is a big trick currently being missed: the housing sector and further education should be much more strongly connected and intelligent partnerships between housing providers, contractors and the Adult Education Budget now need to be formed to deliver the skills and jobs we need. 

 Joe Crolla, Skills and Intelligence Lead at GMCA, agreed that alignment between housing and education is key. Joe explained that GM currently has a good-sized construction sector but less than 1% of those are registered with MCS/Trustmark. Joe said the GM net zero target of 2038 is ambitious and one of the biggest contributions we can make to this is upgrading draughty homes. He also mentioned that the stop-start nature of government subsidies so far have hindered the development of the required skills infrastructure. 

 Finally, Jon Lord, Chief Executive of Bolton at Home, talked about their ‘Greenworks’ initiative, which will see a retail park transformed into a community-focused green technology, business and skills hub. It will focus on developing the long-term jobs around maintaining and replacing new technologies. Jon commented that linking the net zero agenda with new skills and jobs opportunities for Bolton has been really effective with tenants.  

 Discussion in this session included recognising that housing providers will all be looking for the same skills at the same time, as happened when the Decent Homes Standard was first introduced, so there needs to be careful planning to avoid competition between providers. It was noted that there is a significant opportunity to attract green-minded young people leaving education to these new jobs where they can contribute to reducing carbon emissions. The challenge to retrain and upskill the current workforce was also noted. 

 From retrofitting too hard to heat homes, what do we need to do by 2030 to make our homes sustainable and energy efficient? 

 Steve Coffey, Chief Executive of Torus, took over as Chair for the rest of the day and introduced a session looking at ‘hard-to-treat’ homes. James Johnson, North West Net Zero Hub, said the case to increase the energy efficiency of homes is growing stronger and stronger with the ongoing cost of living crisis and energy crisis. 

 Mark Lowe, Director of Sustainability at ForHousing, said around one third of homes in England fall into the hard-to-treat category so this will be a real challenge for the sector. He said data will be key to understanding stock (and identifying hard-to-treat properties early) and where the costs of deep retrofit can be weighed up with business plans. Charlie Whitford, Manufacturing Technology Centre, added that the challenge now is scale, not product, and the system needs to be expanded through productivity to drive value. Charlie said the sector should develop a unified approach and then tell the supply chain what is needed in terms of value in response. 

 There was discussion here around weighing up retrofitting plans with development plans and making sure we invest in the right technologies. There was some discussion around hydrogen but the panel explained that it would not be scalable in domestic buildings for at least two decades, saying electrifying heat is the best option now. Overall, it was agreed that the sector needs to be more confident as we are well-placed to shape the market. An important point was made around the language the sector uses with regard to hard-to-treat homes as tenants will be aware of these challenges. 

 What does the next 8 years look like from levelling up to decarbonisation funding? 

 Kate Henderson, Chief Executive of the NHF, opened the session on levelling up and housing decarbonisation over the next eight years. Kate said there is a huge amount of ambition and willingness in the sector to act on climate change, explaining we are the best placed to do so because of the sector’s unique relationship with tenants, the potential for economies of scale, and the ability for the sector to be market-shapers. Kate went on to say Lord Callanan, BEIS Minister, is supportive of our ambitions but we need to call for longer-term funding and ask what happens after the next wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. Kate also outlined further opportunities to focus Homes England on the regenerative aspects of decarbonisation, as part of the Government’s approach to levelling-up. 

 Selvin Brown, Director of Domestic Net Zero Buildings at BEIS, set out the urgency of the challenge we face, with the UK having the oldest housing stock in Europe and unacceptably high levels of fuel poverty. Selvin said we are in a good place following the manifesto commitments on decarbonisation, the Heat and Buildings Strategy, and the funding allocated so far. He said only the social housing sector can “do what needs to be done” by deploying technologies at scale across different archetypes. He was clear that the social housing sector will lead the way on this for the private rented and owner-occupied sectors. Selvin noted that data is going to be a big part of the solution, and they are planning to publish some of their evaluation around the Demonstrator round of SHDF. He implored providers to get involved with the Social Housing Retrofit Accelerator now – the technical assistance facility funded by BEIS and ran by Turner and Townsend – no matter what stage of the process they are at bidding for Wave 2.  

 The NHC will continue to work with the sector and beyond to call for longer-term funding and policies from Government to support the North to lead the way on home upgrades as part of wider plans to rebalance the regions of the UK, reduce carbon emissions and energy bills, and make homes warmer and healthier. We’ll also work with our members to progress the recommendations of the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury to ensure tenants are central to the planning of more sustainable homes and communities. 

 Please do not hesitate to follow up on this with the NHC by contacting Anna Seddon (Policy and Public Affairs Manager) at anna.seddon@northern-consortium.org.uk.