Retrofitting to counter climate is relegated to the ... ? SIDELINES!

There is a resolution submitted by Richard Hatcher on this item. 

“The West Midlands Combined Authority’s ‘Five Year Plan’ aims “to retrofit 292,000 homes by 2026 to stay on course for net zero”. “The WMCA estimates the investment required to 2026 to fund the Five Year Plan as … £3,853million.” “The WMCA has brought in c. £11m of retrofit funding, amongst a wider total of £67.66m won by our constituent local authorities.” It doesn’t say for how many homes. And now the WMCA are bidding for Government grants worth around £40million to retrofit over 2000 homes.

This would enable an average of £20,000 per home. So the £11m funding already secured by the WMCA plus the new bid would retrofit approximately 2,500 homes. To put this is context, there are 235,512 fuel poor homes in the West Midlands according to the WMCA’s ‘Five Year Plan’. 2,500 homes is about 1% of that.

There will be more Government grants available for home retrofit, but they will be nowhere near the sums needed to fund the CA’s plans. But the WMCA’s ‘Five Year Plan’ relies not on Government funding but on “developing investable propositions to stimulate the market”. The problem is that this investment is simply not forthcoming, as the WMCA report ‘Environment Behaviour Change Update’ on 9 March 2022 explains: ‘“Energy infrastructure spending is not aligned with local economic priorities which is proving a significant barrier to business investment.” In short, the market won’t invest in retrofit on a large scale because they don’t think there’s enough profit in it.

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) is “an industry network with a mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment, by transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated.” In October this year it published a 26 page document – the ‘UKGBC Response to Net Zero Review: Call for evidence’, which is very critical of Government policy: “Current rates of renovation will need to increase by around 7 times if we are to meet the Government’s target of upgrading as many homes to EPC Band C as possible by 2035.” The report concludes that “It is critical that Government therefore introduce and support a large-scale, transformative domestic retrofit strategy and programme that is fully coordinated with local authorities, industry, consumers and other relevant stakeholders, and does not disadvantage lower-income households.”

 
The WMCA itself acknowledges the failure of Government policy: “Current funding provision is sporadic, piecemeal and usually short-term”. But the actions it wants from Government fall far short of what is urgently needed – there is no call for a huge increase in Government funding to get the retrofit industry to work to achieve the WMCA’s retrofit targets on behalf of the people of the West Midlands. 

 
The WMCC therefore calls on Mayor Andy Street to publicly demand full Government funding for home retrofit and to campaign for it, mobilising popular pressure on Government. This would gain overwhelming public support.”