Stroud District Council has been awarded a Government grant of £1.8million to improve the energy efficiency of 187 council homes.
The Council is wholly committed to energy efficiency and carbon reduction and this award follows its recent decision to invest millions from a similar fund on improving insulation and installing low carbon heating systems in some of its houses.
The Department for Business, Energy, and Indutrial Strategy Wave 1 funding means the Council can help cut tenants’ energy bills and carbon emissions, boost the green economy and improve the health and wellbeing of tenants.
SDC led a consortium bid with Cheltenham Borough Homes, Two Rivers Housing and Gloucester City Homes which will cover external wall insulation, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and window replacements. This meets part of the Council’s decarbonisation strategy and follows retrofit work which is currently being undertaken at Hamfallow Court under the SHDF Demonstrator grant. SDC’s award value is £1.8million from the SHDF towards total SDC project costs of £2.7m. SDC will contribute £900,000.
This Gloucestershire-wide energy performance improvement project will mean warm, energy-efficient homes for tenants and reduce carbon emissions through improvements to 311 properties across which currently have the lowest energy performance in our social housing stock. The total award value for the whole consortium is £3.4m towards total project costs of £6m.
“This funding and Stroud District Council’s financial commitment will cut fuel bills and carbon emissions, while improving lives and boosting green jobs,” said SDC Housing Committee Chair, Mattie Ross.
“The three main priorities of the new Council Plan for up to 2025 are environment and climate change, community resilience and wellbeing, and economy, recovery and regeneration, and this project helps address them all.
“I am enormously proud of the team at SDC for leading the bid to secure the funding.”
The funding is provided through the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) which is administered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Around 20,000 social homes across England will be made warmer and benefit from cheaper energy bills thanks to £179m of Government funding that has been announced.
SHDF is a £3.8bn Government commitment over a 10-year period to improve energy performance of socially rented homes.
