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We’ve been successful in a £ 1.2 million grant from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund

We have been successful with a £ 1.2 million grant as part of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to improve our homes in the Wychavon area and work has already started.

The grant is provided by the Government Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and we applied for it in partnership with Wychavon District Council.

The money is part of a demonstrator fund, and this means that we are one of the first pioneering housing associations, along with a small consortium of other housing associations, who are testing the viability of how the grant process works.

The fund will allow us to retrofit some of our D Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rated properties to help save energy.

Savills, an experienced large housing and sustainability consultancy, are managing the project with the support of our Asset Management team. Wates are the appointed contractor who will be facilitating the works on our homes.

Savills have supported our application with substantial input from colleagues at Citizen, Trent and Dove, Rooftop and Orbit. Wychavon District Council have been instrumental in working with our consortium of housing associations to allow us to gain the funding from BEIS.

Director of Asset Management Paul Baker said: “We feel privileged and excited to receive the funding and carry out these works.

“The fund covers approximately 75 percent of the project cost, utilising a range of energy saving measures by looking at the building components and improving them thermally such as heating, walls, roof, doors, and windows.

“It is vital we achieve good value for our customers and assist those who are struggling with fuel poverty. We are keen to investigate different ways of working to improve performance and process and are happy to be taking the lead in this venture.”

We also worked with Coventry City Council to submit a separate bid to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and have been awarded a £1.1m to improve the energy efficiency of 95 homes across Coventry.

Associate Director at Savills David Prescott said: “Savills are extremely proud to be supporting this project. The lessons learnt on the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator projects will prove invaluable to future planning and successful delivery of retrofit projects at scale.

“Energy efficiency, affordable warmth, fuel poverty and decarbonisation represent areas of huge social, economic and environmental importance, but also present significant challenges. Savills feel privileged to be in a position to offer support and expertise to the sector in understanding stock performance, investment needs, strategy development and the successful delivery of energy efficiency objectives.”

The Wychavon project construction started on 28 March and is due to be complete by mid-July 2022.

Cllr Tony Rowley, Executive Board Member for Climate Change, Environmental Policy and Regulatory Services on Wychavon District Council, said: “We’re proud of our commitment to helping people save energy and cut costs, especially at such a challenging time, so it’s great to be part of this exciting new scheme. We believe it will deliver long-term benefits for residents and the environment.”

Regional Managing Director at Wates Stewart Reid said: “Providing clients and their residents with homes that help reduce fuel poverty through the installation of traditional and innovative carbon reduction technologies is vital in the current climate as fuel costs rise.

“We are delighted to be working with Citizen to support them at the start of their housing retrofit journey through the design and delivery of these much-needed improvements.”

We will be submitting further bids to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to cover other areas to help us ensure our homes below the SAP rating D band are rated C or above by the Governments deadline of 2030.

For media enquiries contact our Communications Team.

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