Warm Homes, Green Jobs at Labour Party Conference!

We launched our new research report ‘Warm Homes, Green Jobs: Meeting the Net Zero challenge in the North’ at an event during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

The event was attended by NHC members, contractors, MPs and other key stakeholders, who heard from the NHC’s Tom Kennedy as he presented on the key findings, and solutions, from the research.

Following the presentation, MP for Blaydon and Consett, Liz Twist, and new MP for Middlesborough South and East Cleveland, Luke Myer, responded to the research and gave reflections based on their own constituencies, as well as detailing the Government’s plans to improve the energy efficiency of homes through its Warm Homes Plan.

Warm Homes, Green Jobs sets out how the social housing sector can take the lead in delivering warmer, greener homes across the North. This has the potential to create up to 77,000 good green jobs for northerners.

As part of the research, 36 interviews were conducted with 50 people, including representatives from social housing landlords, local authorities, Mayoral Combined Authorities, contractors, and others who are working to decarbonise the North’s social housing.

Some of these representatives were at the event, and on the panel of speakers we had Tony Cahill Executive Director for Property at Livv Housing, who spoke about Livv’s exemplar approach to retrofitting homes, and the importance of devolution. Attendees also heard from contractor RE:GEN, with Tom Lamb explaining their approach to tackling the green jobs skills gap by offering training to local residents through the RE:GEN Academy.

Chris Brown, Managing Director of Climatise offered his reflections on the research and challenges the sector may face. Finally, Communities that Work’s Lynsey Sweeney explained how we can develop supply chains with local people and the importance of devolving power to Mayoral Combined Authorities to do this. 

It was brilliant to have a real mix of key stakeholders in the room to discuss this research and it was clear to see the ambition in the room from social housing providers, contractors, politicians and other key stakeholders to kickstart a retrofit revolution led by the social housing sector.

All the stakeholders agreed that long-term consistent funding for decarbonising homes is vital to ensure that retrofit can be delivered at scale needed to meet net zero targets. Attendees were also in agreement that further devolution of funding is needed to give Mayoral Combined Authorities the power to lead on delivering suitable energy efficiency improvement for their communities.

We’ll be continuing to build momentum around this report and engaging with key partners to help work towards the recommendations and meet the net zero challenge in the North.

Read Warm Homes, Green Jobs here.