A Hertfordshire-based housing consortium of four organisations has made a successful application to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF).
Members of the consortium – Dacorum Borough Council along with housing associations B3Living, settle and Watford Community Housing – to make energy-efficiency improvements worth more than £40million to their housing stock. Over 1,500 social housing properties will benefit from improvements through the funding.
Housing associations B3Living, settle and Watford Community Housing originally joined forces through the Greener Herts partnership in 2021, which was formed to enable the three sustainability-focused housing associations to achieve more tangible results towards a shared ambition to make their homes both energy-efficient and cost-effective for customers. The group has a joint ambition to achieve a completely net-zero carbon footprint by 2050.
The bid submitted to Wave 2.1 of the SHDF will see homes across all four organisations receive energy-efficiency improvement works including loft insulation, external wall insulation, draught proofing, installation of PV panels and low-energy lighting.
The funding now secured by the consortium reflects a combined pledge of £25million from B3Living, Dacorum Borough Council, settle and Watford Community Housing, with an additional £14million provided by the SHDF.
Gavin Cansfield, Chief Executive at settle, said:
On behalf of colleagues across B3Living, Dacorum, settle and Watford Community Housing, we are all delighted to have secured this funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. This will enable us to accelerate investment in our homes and work towards our targets to be net zero by 2050. The importance of this investment is clear – we will be able to support more residents to live in lower carbon homes, with a lower cost of living and deliver benefits to the environment more quickly.
The strength of partnership working between our organisations has been integral to securing this funding. We look forward to continuing our successful work together, with suppliers and partners at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero as we progress the important work enabled by this funding.
