Local authorities are set to invest billions in greening their housing stock under the flagship green deal programme, reports Building. Birmingham City Council is currently shortlisting firms for £1.4bn of Green deal whilst councils across the North East of England , as well as in Greater Manchester, Leeds and and Bristol are preparing to invest more than £300m in the next few months.
Newcastle council working with a number of other authorities across the north east is set to issue tender documents within the next three months for £80m to retrofit £15,000 homes. Leeds is drawing up plans which could see it leverage up to £75m to start retrofit work.
Ministers will welcome the push from local authorities to take the lead on the programme with councils teaming up to create schemes of sufficient scale to make them viable and attractive to private sector partners.
Meanwhile social landlords received another fillip on their proposals to green housing stock when the government backed down on plans to cut subsidies for the installation of photovoltaics claimed Inside Housing.
Under government proposals announced in October, social housing photovoltaic panel schemes were set to be hit with an especially heavy cut to the FIT – so that it fell from 43.3p to just 16.8p instead of the 21p rate for smaller scale schemes. It would have rendered the majority of schemes unviable and denied up to 38,000 social tenants annual savings of up to £200 for each household.
Campaigners have been reclassifying social housing schemes because of their community benefits as it was unfair to penalise low-income tenants who pay for the FIT through their bills by not enabling them to receive the relief PV provides in tackling fuel poverty. But the government has now said it would consult to protect landlords from the additional 20 per cent cut for more than 25 installations.
