cover image: Hitting a brick wall - How the UK can upgrade its housing stock to reduce energy bills and cut carbon

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Hitting a brick wall - How the UK can upgrade its housing stock to reduce energy bills and cut carbon

13 Dec 2022

The work of the Inquiry will be brought together in a final report in 2023 that will set out a renewed economic strategy for the UK to enable the country to successfully navigate the decade ahead, with proposals to drive strong, sustainable and equitable growth, and significant improvements to people’s living standards and well-being. [...] Insulating the nation’s inefficient homes is long overdue, but there are signs the Government is ready to act Insulating the country’s inefficient housing stock is one of the UK’s key net zero challenges: the nation’s homes account for around one-sixth of our total carbon footprint today, equivalent to that from all the petrol and diesel cars on UK roads.1 To get back on track to legal carbon targ. [...] Part of the reason why social rented housing is better-performing than other tenures when it comes to energy efficiency is the age of the stock: 16 per cent of socially rented homes in England were constructed before 1945, compared with 39 per cent of the remainder of the housing stock (owner occupied and private rented).20 Newer homes 19 Government estimates show that living in a poorly insulated. [...] To date, two ‘waves’ of the SHDF have been announced: the first a demonstrator, backed with £179 million of funding and a target to insulate ‘up to 20,000’ homes, and the second wave, which has recently launched, is backed by £800 million of public funds.21 But there are still a significant number of homes requiring upgrades, especially considering the outsized share of households in fuel poverty. [...] Funding the 10 per cent of poorly insulated walls in English homes lived in by households warranting full support would cost the taxpayer in the region of £600 million per year over the next decade, while funding an average of half of the costs for each household in between the lower and upper bounds would bring an annual public price tag of £1.2 billion, combining to a state bill of £1.8 billion.
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