Hello!
Excited to be putting out our first CCH Retrofit Blog post.
We’ll be looking to get these out more regularly as the service develops and more funding announcements are made over the coming months. Hopefully there’s something useful here but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to talk about anything associated with retrofit or carbon saving for your co-ops!
As we start working with more members we hope to share their projects and experience with you as things evolve.
What we’ve been up to
Following our launch in February it’s been encouraging to see a whole host of co-ops and service providers make contact about their retrofit plans. We’ve had a real broad range of enquiries that have come from all over England and Wales.
Throughout February and March we had a dozen enquiries through our contact form with the South West, Midlands and London being well represented.. So far our members who’ve been in touch have indicated that they have plans to retrofit 500+ homes!
We’ve been meeting with members and offering free project planning support to review their plans, talk through what PAS 2035 is and what it means for their retrofit projects and to discuss funding opportunities available.
We’ve started issuing initial appraisal reports and offering a range of consultancy support to help move your retrofit projects forward. We have had our first co-op sign up so we’ll be making a start on the first project this month.
The range of upfront support has varied so far as we’ve tried to tailor the time to what best suits member’s needs – this has ranged from 2 hour calls, initial appraisal reports and attending member co-op meetings – please do get in touch if you have a project either in mind or already in development as it we’d like to support even if that is just signposting or sharing with us where you’re at.
Funding – SHRA
During the launch I mentioned the Social Housing Retrofit Accelerator (SHRA) team who we have continued to work with and learn more about the funding process. The idea of a CCH consortium application to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) is being developed and we have been learning from successful Wave 1 Applications through our networks.
If you are planning your own SHDF bid and haven’t been in touch then please fill out our enquiry form below.
It’s been announced that the Social Housing Decarbonisation fund Wave 2 has been delayed and will now open for applications in August 2022. Article here on the announcement in March.
We understand that this Wave will set up applications ready to submit in Autumn as there is a fair amount of work involved in collating information once the guidance and forms are released.
Other funding sources
We have started to collate a database of funding opportunities beyond the SHDF which we’ll aim to keep live and update for members. Please see the link here and request access so we can share with you our database and keep in touch.
One of these schemes is the ECO 4 and one of our London Co-ops is in communication with Octopus Energy and Eon to see if they can help co-ops access this funding. Please get in touch if this is of interest to you. We will be sharing more details as we get them.
Useful links:
- Member Forum: Introducing our service
- CCH enquiry form – the first step in securing some upfront advice and project planning support for members.
- https://retrofitacademy.org/what-is-pas-2035/
- https://www.trustmark.org.uk/tradespeople/how-to-become-pas-mcs-certified.
- https://socialhousingretrofit.org.uk/
- https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-and-social-schemes/energy-company-obligation-eco4
James Neward
Contact: [email protected]