Households in East Sussex and Surrey to benefit from warmer homes and £400 off energy bills

Secretary of State for Energy Security Claire Coutinho has announced the award of more than £75 million from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to offer free upgrades to tenants’ homes including insulation, double glazing and the installation of heat pumps.

The scheme is already working to reach around 100,000 households.

Funding will be available to 42 councils and housing associations across England – including in Lewes (£2,348,000); Wealden (£1,473,000) and Waverley (£279,000) – to install energy saving measures in social homes, while supporting 1,300 jobs in the UK’s retrofit industry.

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “This funding will help some of the lowest income households by delivering warm and energy efficient homes, lifting people out of fuel poverty and improving the comfort and wellbeing of social housing tenants.

“Almost half of all homes in England are now rated Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C or above, up from 14 per cent in 2010.

"Open to applicants who had not received funding in the previous wave – which is also expected to save tenants around up to £400 on their energy bills – this funding will bring many new social housing landlords into the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund for the first time, helping to ensure the programme reaches as many social homes as possible.”

Claire Coutinho said the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is ‘helping families to keep their homes warm and their bills down’.

She added: “We want to support hard-working families to make changes, rather than burdening them with unnecessary costs.

“This funding today will help up to a further 8,800 households save around £400 a year on their energy bills.”

Lord Callanan, minister for energy efficiency and green finance said: “Already working to deliver free home upgrades to around 100,000 social homes, the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is helping low-income families have cheaper bills and a warmer home.

“We’re now going even further to cut energy bills for more social tenants, all while supporting an additional 1,300 jobs in the UK’s retrofit industry.”

The government is allocating around £20 billion over this parliament and next to improve the energy efficiency and low carbon heating of homes and businesses, reducing reliance on fossil fuel heating and reducing household energy bills.

A spokesperson added: “This includes the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which is helping households make the switch from fossil fuel heating systems to cleaner low carbon alternatives.

“Having increased the grant by 50 per cent to £7,500 – making it one of the most generous schemes of its kind in Europe – applications are on a sustained surge, with the average monthly number of applications from November 2023 to January this year 39 per cent higher than the monthly average before the uplift.

“The government also recently announced that homeowners will have more choice in how they improve their home and will no longer have to install cavity wall or loft insulation to use the Boiler Upgrade Scheme."