“We need grants that are fit for purpose,” councillors have said amid concerns that the council’s retrofit handbook is too focused on private housing.
By Maya Sall
“We need grants that are fit for purpose,” councillors have said amid concerns that the council’s retrofit handbook is too focused on private housing.
Islington Council’s climate action supplementary planning document (SPD) and retrofit handbook is set to go to public consultation in October.
The document’s purpose is to provide advice about making homes more energy-efficient and “facilitate uptake” in measures such as draught-proofing, insulation, and heat pumps.
Cllr Rowena Champion, executive member for environment, air quality and transport, said she hoped the handbook would show residents that sometimes “off-putting” changes to their homes are “in many cases, not as difficult as they think”.
But opposition councillor, the Green Party’s Caroline Russell, warned: “It’s important that we’re thinking about this not just in terms of private home ownership.”
She highlighted the “huge implications” retrofitting has for the council, because it “owns a lot of street properties” that are “very hard to retrofit”.
“Are we pushing housing associations?” Russell asked. “Are we making sure the council is upgrading homes itself so that tenants in street properties have the potential for better insulated homes?”
“It’s not easy,” admitted Cllr Champion, “but it’s a real priority for the council… we want to encourage retrofitting in social housing because a lot of tenants live in fuel poverty.
“The handbook will contain minor measures so that people who don’t actually have control over their houses feel they’ve got some things they can do.”
Champion said the Town Hall had been working with Peabody and Barnsbury Housing Association to make bids to the Housing Decarbonisation Fund, but acknowledged that current grants were “not fit for purpose”.
She expressed hope that this would change, “as the new government have said that retrofitting is a particular priority, so I’m looking forward to have a grant system that works for everybody”.
