Yorkshire Housing invests £1.3 million to make homes more energy efficient

Yorkshire Housing is investing £1.3 million in upgrading 15 of its homes in Staxton, North Yorkshire to make them more energy efficient.

Around £190,000 of the £1.3 million is coming from the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund which provides funding to improve the energy performance of social housing properties.

A spokesman said: "The work is part of Yorkshire Housing’s ongoing commitment to improve the energy efficiency of customers’ homes. The aim is to use green technology and fabric-first measures to make homes more energy efficient in order to reduce energy consumption and cut carbon emissions. A similar upgrade project was recently successfully completed on 30 Yorkshire Housing homes in the Craven area."

E.ON has been appointed to carry out the upgrade work, which includes installing solar panels, air-source heat pumps and external wall insulation. Work gets underway later in the summer and is expected to be completed in the autumn.

Steve Ellard, Director of Assets & Sustainability at Yorkshire Housing said: “We believe everyone should have the opportunity to live in a home that’s cost-effective to heat. Whether that means retro-fitting our existing homes, or installing them as standard in our new build homes, we’re committed to supporting our customers who’re facing the worst cost of living crisis we’ve seen for decades.”

Analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that households on low incomes are spending on average 18% of their income on energy bills, plunging them into fuel poverty.

Mr Ellard added: “We can’t control energy prices, but there’s lots we can do to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. We’ve set ourselves an ambitious goal to decarbonise our existing homes and over the next four years we’ll be carrying out a whole variety of upgrade work on thousands of our properties. Our first priority is to tackle older homes that have poor insulation and inefficient heating systems like coal and oil so those customers can start to benefit from our energy efficiency improvement work as soon as possible.”

David Newitt, Director of E.ON Energy Installation Services said: “We’re excited to continue our relationship with Yorkshire Housing by delivering the Staxton retrofit project. By combining the upgrading of the doors, windows and insulation of the properties with modern renewable technologies in the form of air source heat pumps and PV solar panels, the residents will have the best possible opportunity to reduce their energy consumption in time for the coming winter. As well as our expert management team delivering the project, our post-install support will ensure that the residents are fully informed on how they can most efficiently utilise the improvements made to their homes. We look forward to hearing of the positive impact the works have in the months to come.”

Steve Mackenzie, Yorkshire Housing’s customer climate change champion added: “I applaud Yorkshire Housing for this investment because it shows they’re genuinely committed to improving customer welfare and tackling climate change by working towards becoming a net-zero carbon emissions social housing provider.”