Are social landlords ready for retrofit?

One quarter of social landlords will not have a retrofit strategy in place until 2012-15 or later, according to a new survey.

Procurement for Housing, Fusion21 and the University of Salford questioned 134 social housing organisations about their approach to improving the sustainability of their housing stock, asking about their preparation to meet low carbon energy targets set out in the Warm Homes Standard.

Only 13 per cent of respondents currently have a strategic plan in place to make their properties energy efficient, with over a fifth of housing professionals presently approaching retrofit through a few pilot projects and nothing more. A number of respondents have no activity in place to increase the sustainability of their homes.

Yet the survey found that 27 per cent of housing professionals saw sustainable retrofit as the biggest challenge facing the social housing sector, prioritising it above risks posed by the general economic downturn, reduced development programmes and housing benefit cuts.

Lack of funding support was identified as the main barrier to installing retrofit measures by 87 per cent of housing professionals. The primary obstacle for tenants adopting retrofit solutions was identified by respondents as a lack of resident understanding about new technology.

Procurement for Housing and Fusion21 are now undertaking further research with the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) to examine the best ways to advise residents on issues around energy saving and how they can change their behaviour to reduce fuel bills.

Steve Malone, MD of Procurement for Housing said: “The purpose of this survey was to gauge where social landlords stand at present with retrofit and how prepared they are for the task ahead. It is worrying to discover that one quarter of social landlords won’t have a retrofit plan in place for another two to five years. At PfH’s conference on 7 October I’ll be speaking to social landlords about the barriers to developing a retrofit strategy and ways of building up trust so residents will welcome the opportunity for improvements.”

Dave Neilson, chief executive at Fusion21 added: “A ten year deadline to meet the Warm Homes Standard will be a huge challenge for housing organisations. PfH and Fusion21’s view is that we need to start addressing this now by setting up procurement frameworks that enable landlords to ‘hit the ground running’ when the Standard is defined – probably later this year. At the same time, housing providers will need to have sorted out their strategies, and considered sources of funding – internal and external – for what is bound to be a very large scale of investment.”