Policy in this area is of course devolved, meaning Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a certain degree of freedom in how they go about their retrofit agendas.
The Optimised Retrofit Programme fits in what the Warm Homes Plan might call its ‘Low Income’ strand and has been successfully running for many years.
Wales has some of the oldest and least thermally efficient housing in Europe, with 32% of its housing stock built before 1919 – a large number of these being pre-war mid terraced homes with solid walls, and they are supplemented by a significant number of semi and detached solid wall homes built in the 1920s and 30s.
On 25th February the Welsh Government published its renewed guidance for the programme1, with a slightly different direction to that taken by UK Government schemes in recent months.
While making clear that fabric remains a “cornerstone of energy efficiency”, the Warm Homes Plan states “Alternative technologies—such as rooftop solar and home batteries—are likely to offer significantly more cost-effective routes to reducing energy bills and maintaining thermal comfort.”2
In contrast the Welsh Government directs applicants to the Optimised Retrofit Programme, saying “we ask landlords to optimise insulation, maximise airt tightness, and carefully consider ventilation to reduce heat loss and make homes ‘fabric ready’”.
Of course, schemes from both Governments will ask applicants to consider the upfront cost as well as the impact on energy bills and emissions from any measures installed. But there appears to be an interesting difference in priorities emerging between the two Governments.
These approaches reflect the emerging debate in retrofit policy about the best use of various measures, and which households should be preferred. Many concerned about alleviating fuel poverty, such as National Energy Action, have warned of the need to “support the most vulnerable people, and not just the well-heeled early adopters of different technologies new grant schemes often serve.”3
Within England the devolution agenda has recently seen Tier 4 Combined Authorities in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands granted greater freedoms in how to spend their own energy efficiency funding from Government.
In the coming year new rounds of grant programmes in England begin to take shape, and local authorities consider how to deliver for their own residents. It will be interesting to see the approaches devolved nations and Combined Authorities choose to take.
