Futures has been awarded an extra £100,000 in funding to improve the energy performance of our customer’s homes.
The £100,000 is from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), a scheme created by the government for housing associations and local authorities to bid for money. The money is then used to improve homes with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) lower than C, using a fabric first approach, by installing measures such as external wall insulation, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels where appropriate.
This latest funding will be used to treat a further nine homes in Amber Valley with external wall insulation and loft insulation over the following months.
We’ve been working closely with the Midlands Net Zero Hub who are supporting us in our work to become a zero-carbon organisation, and helped us secure the additional grant. The Midlands Net Zero Hub visited some of our homes on Pinewood Avenue in Ripley to see properties at the handover stage and to see energy efficiency works in progress.
The properties have a combination of external wall insulation, loft insulation and solar PV panels installed. The Hub was impressed with our collaboration with Amber Valley Borough Council and our contractor Sustainable Building Services which has enabled nearly 50 additional private households to receive external wall insulation, making more homes in the community warmer and energy efficient. We’re really pleased with our progress so far and by the quality of the works.
We were originally awarded a massive £900,000 in ‘Wave 1’ of the SHDF in March last year, which has meant over 70 of our customer’s homes are already receiving energy upgrade work. It’s down to our excellent performance so far as to why we’ve been given this extra funding.
Did you know we’ve set a target to make all our customer’s homes EPC Band C or above by 2030? This funding helps us accelerate this journey. We’re passionate about ensuring our customers live in warm and affordable homes, as well as reducing our carbon emissions. We hope to find out shortly if we’ve been successful in securing further funding via our SHDF ‘Wave 2’ bid.
