Green Homes Grant Axed

The government’s Green Homes Grant has this month been axed just six months after its launch. The scheme was introduced to help private homeowners and landlords give their properties an eco-friendly upgrade, whilst creating work for tradespeople. But it closed on 1 April onwards to new applications.

The Green Homes Grant was launched at the end of September 2020, offering vouchers of up to £10,000 to cover the costs of making energy efficiency improvements to privately rented properties. It was introduced in anticipation of the new energy efficiency measures currently under discussion, that could see it become law that all privately let properties meet an EPC rating of C or above from April 2025.

Scheme ‘beset with issues’

The scheme has been beset with issues, including the complex nature of its approval system. An investigation by LandlordZONE highlighted clear teething problems, as the scheme struggled to recruit sufficient approved tradespeople. There were also technical issues within the official website. By 1st December, only 6,000 applications from landlords for vouchers had been made.

Tradespeople would only qualify as approved suppliers having gone through the Trustmark approval process, and there was a lack of them willing to do so. COVID restrictions also caused issues, as well as confusion over which upgrades and improvements actually qualified for the grant, and in which order they should be completed.

At its close, only around 60,0000 of the 600,000 available vouchers had been taken up by the scheme.

So what of the unspent, allocated funds?

The BBC reports that £300m of the unspent cash will now be redirected to a parallel ‘green upgrade’ programme called the Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme. It will target low-income households, and will be administered by local councils.

Ambitious green targets

The government’s target of net zero greenhouse gases by 2050 involves raising the energy performance certificate for all new tenancies in the private rented sector to a C or above by 2025. By 2028, this requirement will extend to all private rented sector properties.

This appears to be something of an ambitious target, bearing in mind that 67 per cent of private rented properties in England and Wales, some 3.2 million, currently sit at band D or lower.

The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) has been calling unfailingly for additional funding to help landlords to take their energy efficiency measures over and above the minimum legal level of energy efficiency measures for the private rented sector.

Meera Chindooroy, Deputy Director, Campaigns, Public Affairs & Policy says: “One way for the government to ensure it avoids the pitfalls which have affected the Green Homes Grant scheme is to consider the Environmental Audit Committee’s (EAC) latest recommendations.

“In our view the EAC’s report, which features several NRLA recommendations, can provide a useful starting point for a longer-term strategy to energy efficiency.” 

Only time will tell as to how landlords are supposed to meet their energy efficiency targets. Naturally, we will be keeping an ear to the ground, ready to report any developments.

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