Peter Gibson is the MP for Darlington.
We all know the difficulties that households across the country have been facing with current inflation being driven by rising energy costs, provoked by surging demand after the pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
But this problem has an underlying built-in accelerator from the fact that this country’s homes are among the draughtiest and most poorly insulated in Europe – an issue which is all the clearer in Northern towns and cities like Darlington.
It doesn’t help that despite all the house building going on around the country, the UK’s housing stock is generally older than that across the rest of Europe. Again, in the North we have a higher percentage of older properties than the rest of the country: 24 per cent of all homes in the North were built before 1919, and 41 per cent were built before 1944.
All in all, 26 per cent of the north’s carbon emissions come from our homes. We must do something to reduce this if we are serious about our Net Zero commitment.
There have been many recent conversations about how we can ensure Net Zero does not come at the cost of consumers struggling through the cost of living crisis. We need instead to see this for the opportunity it presents – to level up our communities, to provide well-paying jobs well into the future, and to ensure our homes are actually cheaper to heat. Everyone wins.
The historic vernacular of our Northern towns, such as Darlington’s Victorian terraces, is hugely important and a matter of pride to local people. These older homes are largely beautiful, characterful properties.
But they prove particularly difficult to heat. We must find solutions to ensure that these homes are fit for the future; subsequent generations will thank us for our foresight in preserving these homes and doing our bit to save the planet.
At a time where households are worried about the cost of living, poorly-insulated homes add yet more expense.
This particularly hurts people in social housing, who are already disproportionately affected by rising bills in proportion to their income. Recent research by the National Housing Federation found that social housing residents in less energy efficient homes would save an average of £567 if their homes were brought up to EPC C – reducing bills by 42 per cent. These sorts of figures alone justify action.
The Government does recognise the challenges people are facing, having already, and continuing to, provide comprehensive financial support for household energy bills across the country, and the recent announcement of vast new sums of funding for insulating our homes has rightly been welcomed.
I’m particularly minded that we should prioritise social housing because, unlike other tenures, social landlords own entire blocks or streets of homes and can insulate at scale. This not only protects those most vulnerable to higher bills first, but it’ll also make a larger and more immediate contribution to both our Net Zero commitments. This work would also improve the quality of this stock, helping fight the damp and mould that can blight ill-maintained homes.
Working closely with North Star Housing, which has homes in my constituency, I am aware of the huge challenges they face in decarbonising and retrofitting their properties; they are fully supportive of moves to decarbonise homes, but the costs involved are prohibitive.
To illustrate this, they told me of a pilot decarbonisation project that they are carrying out on a two-bedroom, late-Victorian terraced house in Middlesbrough; they are aiming to get to EPC level A, so that they can then monitor the performance of the building.
North Star Housing calculates that the cost of the decarbonisation work will be £45,500, with £12,000 going on solid wall insulation alone. While the work is being carried out, the property must sit empty for around 20 weeks, resulting in a void period and a loss of rental income.
Given that other houses on the same street are valued at around £70,000, North Star Housing is looking at spending well over half of the value of a property in order to decarbonise it. Long term funding solutions will be needed to make such projects viable.
Another barrier to this vital work I hear about time and time again is the shortage of skilled workers.
The North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) assessment of skills in domestic energy identified an urgent need for scaling up skills provision in order to meet the region’s Net Zero targets. In the North East LEP area, in 2019/20, there were 223 full-time-equivalent workers employed in Domestic Retrofit; to achieve Net Zero by 2030 the estimate is that the region will require 19,000 such workers.
These are staggering figures, particularly bearing in mind this is just one region of the country. But it also demonstrates a clear opportunity for Britain.
In my constituency in Darlington we have a number of colleges with specialist courses in insulation and retrofit. Darlington is home to the national training centre of the Thermal Insulation Contractors Association (TICA). It will also soon host a new Construction Skills Hub at Burtree Garden Village, which will provide local people with flexi-job apprenticeships, training in a range of retrofit skills.
In an area steeped in our nation’s industrial heritage, I’m pleased that once again we can be part of leading the way by nourishing the development of a highly-skilled, well-paid workforce that will truly level-up this part of the country, and contribute to the common good.
This difficult crossroads we find ourselves in puts into focus the urgent need to improve our homes and make them affordable to heat, to reduce our reliance on Russian gas, and to create the forward-looking careers that will drive the growth we sorely need. Making our homes more energy-efficient and capitalising on the opportunities this provides, is levelling up in action: a win-win situation we should be laser-focused on achieving.
Peter Gibson is the MP for Darlington.
We all know the difficulties that households across the country have been facing with current inflation being driven by rising energy costs, provoked by surging demand after the pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
But this problem has an underlying built-in accelerator from the fact that this country’s homes are among the draughtiest and most poorly insulated in Europe – an issue which is all the clearer in Northern towns and cities like Darlington.
It doesn’t help that despite all the house building going on around the country, the UK’s housing stock is generally older than that across the rest of Europe. Again, in the North we have a higher percentage of older properties than the rest of the country: 24 per cent of all homes in the North were built before 1919, and 41 per cent were built before 1944.
All in all, 26 per cent of the north’s carbon emissions come from our homes. We must do something to reduce this if we are serious about our Net Zero commitment.
There have been many recent conversations about how we can ensure Net Zero does not come at the cost of consumers struggling through the cost of living crisis. We need instead to see this for the opportunity it presents – to level up our communities, to provide well-paying jobs well into the future, and to ensure our homes are actually cheaper to heat. Everyone wins.
The historic vernacular of our Northern towns, such as Darlington’s Victorian terraces, is hugely important and a matter of pride to local people. These older homes are largely beautiful, characterful properties.
But they prove particularly difficult to heat. We must find solutions to ensure that these homes are fit for the future; subsequent generations will thank us for our foresight in preserving these homes and doing our bit to save the planet.
At a time where households are worried about the cost of living, poorly-insulated homes add yet more expense.
This particularly hurts people in social housing, who are already disproportionately affected by rising bills in proportion to their income. Recent research by the National Housing Federation found that social housing residents in less energy efficient homes would save an average of £567 if their homes were brought up to EPC C – reducing bills by 42 per cent. These sorts of figures alone justify action.
The Government does recognise the challenges people are facing, having already, and continuing to, provide comprehensive financial support for household energy bills across the country, and the recent announcement of vast new sums of funding for insulating our homes has rightly been welcomed.
I’m particularly minded that we should prioritise social housing because, unlike other tenures, social landlords own entire blocks or streets of homes and can insulate at scale. This not only protects those most vulnerable to higher bills first, but it’ll also make a larger and more immediate contribution to both our Net Zero commitments. This work would also improve the quality of this stock, helping fight the damp and mould that can blight ill-maintained homes.
Working closely with North Star Housing, which has homes in my constituency, I am aware of the huge challenges they face in decarbonising and retrofitting their properties; they are fully supportive of moves to decarbonise homes, but the costs involved are prohibitive.
To illustrate this, they told me of a pilot decarbonisation project that they are carrying out on a two-bedroom, late-Victorian terraced house in Middlesbrough; they are aiming to get to EPC level A, so that they can then monitor the performance of the building.
North Star Housing calculates that the cost of the decarbonisation work will be £45,500, with £12,000 going on solid wall insulation alone. While the work is being carried out, the property must sit empty for around 20 weeks, resulting in a void period and a loss of rental income.
Given that other houses on the same street are valued at around £70,000, North Star Housing is looking at spending well over half of the value of a property in order to decarbonise it. Long term funding solutions will be needed to make such projects viable.
Another barrier to this vital work I hear about time and time again is the shortage of skilled workers.
The North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) assessment of skills in domestic energy identified an urgent need for scaling up skills provision in order to meet the region’s Net Zero targets. In the North East LEP area, in 2019/20, there were 223 full-time-equivalent workers employed in Domestic Retrofit; to achieve Net Zero by 2030 the estimate is that the region will require 19,000 such workers.
These are staggering figures, particularly bearing in mind this is just one region of the country. But it also demonstrates a clear opportunity for Britain.
In my constituency in Darlington we have a number of colleges with specialist courses in insulation and retrofit. Darlington is home to the national training centre of the Thermal Insulation Contractors Association (TICA). It will also soon host a new Construction Skills Hub at Burtree Garden Village, which will provide local people with flexi-job apprenticeships, training in a range of retrofit skills.
In an area steeped in our nation’s industrial heritage, I’m pleased that once again we can be part of leading the way by nourishing the development of a highly-skilled, well-paid workforce that will truly level-up this part of the country, and contribute to the common good.
This difficult crossroads we find ourselves in puts into focus the urgent need to improve our homes and make them affordable to heat, to reduce our reliance on Russian gas, and to create the forward-looking careers that will drive the growth we sorely need. Making our homes more energy-efficient and capitalising on the opportunities this provides, is levelling up in action: a win-win situation we should be laser-focused on achieving.