Advice about retrofit
Warm and Eco Homes High Peak is a useful forum for advice.
Preamble
A “one-stop-shop” can be a physical or a virtual place where homeowners can get advice and services to help retrofit their homes. Home assessments will naturally have to be based on site visits and meetings with homeowners in their own home. Given modern ways of communicating, some meetings can take place and advice be given remotely. Nevertheless, local authority teams covering Hope Valley and in Derbyshire Dales District Council and High Peak Borough Council might be located in a large shop with high street frontage rather than in Council offices. Given the value of face-to-face contact, some people from Hope Valley would be prepared to travel to one-stop-shops in Matlock and Buxton or to pop in when they were shopping.
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See Briefing Paper
Background
The UK has some of the worst insulated housing in Western Europe1 and approximately 15 million homes (60% of the total number) will need to be retrofitted by 2030. The picture in Derbyshire is similar with 59% of owner-occupied homes falling within EPC ratings D to G. Homes in Hope Valley are likely to be of a similar poor standard of energy efficiency.
But retrofitting is not happening on anything like the scale necessary to meet our Zero carbon obligations and a large-scale retrofit programme is urgently needed. Homeowners need advice and support, especially if they have a challenging property such as an old stone-built house in a conservation area.
It is suggested that the County Council, working collaboratively with Derbyshire’s Borough and District Councils should set up a One-Stop-Shop Retrofit service to meet these needs.
As well as benefiting homeowners, the wide scale retrofit of housing across Derbyshire would assist the UK government in meeting its international obligations under the Paris Agreement and DCC’s own commitment to become net zero by 20504.
One-Stop-Shop Retrofit Service
Local authorities in Derbyshire are already working to coordinate their resources “better and more sustainably” in a strategic collaboration called Vision Derbyshire that brings Derbyshire County Council, the Boroughs and District Councils together to work in partnership. This means each local authority does not have to “reinvent the wheel” and boroughs and districts can share best practice without duplication of effort.
It is suggested that the County Council and Local Authorities combine resources to establish a countywide One-Stop-Shop Retrofit Service. The range of services a one-stop-shop could include:
- Brochures or leaflets covering a range of typical home types to enable a householder to relate information to their own home.
- A plan for a specific project in the home, such as tackling a cold draughty room.
- A whole-home retrofit plan.
- Advice to enable the work to be done partly or wholly by DIY, to help homeowners avoid unintended consequences.
- Advice about approaching the retrofit in stages according to affordability /availability of time etc.
- Lists of registered and approved tradespeople.
- Information on the availability of grants and low-interest loans.
Conclusion
Local authorities combining their resources to offer a One-Stop-Shop Retrofit Service, providing reliable and trustworthy, competent, step-by-step guidance for householders, offers an ideal way to encourage retrofit to become mainstream and wide scale.
