The government has allocated £800m to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund as part of a multibillion-pound, three-year investment in the decarbonisation of heat and buildings.

Procure Plus have been working with Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) as well as other Social Housing landlords to access the fund to deliver housing retrofit.

To date LCRCA have realised through our DPS:

• Contracts awarded for over £16 million worth of works so far.
• Over 1500 properties retrofit assessed already as a result of these contracts.
• Almost £4 million worth of measures delivered already in Liverpool City Region alone, across five different local authorities – works include floor insulation, cavity wall insulation, solar PV, Air Source Heat Pumps and external wall insulation.
• Mini-comps to be launched over the next month for an additional £21 million worth of works, with measures to be completed by March 22.

Sharon Hanbury, Housing Delivery Manager for LCRCA commented: “The LCRCA have been successful in securing quite significant government funding to deliver housing retrofit across the Liverpool City Region.

This includes LAD Schemes and Sustainable Warmth Funding (grants mainly targeted at private sector housing), plus SHDF (targeted at Social Housing). We are also looking at how we might help in the able to pay market, for instance linked to the Boiler Upgrade Grant Scheme.

We supported the NW Energy Hub in developing the DPS to ensure that we had a suitable vehicle for delivering these schemes, but also more broadly to enable LAs, Housing Providers and others across the NW to deliver housing retrofit on a longer term basis.

We have worked with PP in developing contractual and other documentation and on maximising social value as part of the DPS and ultimately delivery of retrofit.

The service from PP in using the DPS e.g. mini-competitions as well as more general support as we develop and deliver various retrofit programmes and projects has been invaluable”.