This latest funding is in addition to a previous £11.3m scheme which is currently seeing around 1100 homes across the city region being fitted with the same sort of measures to improve energy efficiency and cut bills.

The funding, from the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, will be spread across all six Liverpool City Region local authorities and will mean homes will be fitted with insulation, double glazing, upgraded home heating systems, and other renewable and low carbon technologies.

The primary purpose of this funding is to raise the energy efficiency rating of low-income and low Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rated homes (those with D, E, F or G) both on the gas grid and off the gas grid. This funding will also support low-income households with the transition to low-carbon heating.

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said:

“At a time when more and more people are at risk of fuel poverty because of rising prices and widespread supply issues, we are doing everything we can to help people across our region heat their homes as cheaply and efficiently as possible without heating the planet too. 

“We’re investing nearly £40m to help put money in the pockets of 3,600 of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged households by improving the energy efficiency of their homes and cutting their fuel bills.

“This is only a down payment on our ambitions, though. We want all of our housing to be brought up to a decent standard. If the government are serious about reaching their own net zero targets, they need to work with us to secure the investment we need to help make that happen.”

Councillor Graham Morgan, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Portfolio Holder for Housing and Spatial Planning, said:

 “We are busting a gut on the ground, here in the city region, working with our local authorities to retrofit energy saving measure to as many houses as possible, to save people money on their bills, tackle fuel poverty and help the environment, but there is a limit to how much we can do on our own.  There are 720,000 homes in the city region and more than 60% of them are at EPC band D and below, which means they are wasteful and expensive to keep warm.  We will continue to do all we can but we need government to step up to the plate and enable us to roll these programmes out more quickly.”

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is also developing a Modern Methods of Construction programme that will develop cutting edge technology to retrofit energy efficient measures to existing homes and build new homes with new, state-of-the-art, methods of construction.

The programme will aim to retrofit 10,000 homes over the next ten years, bringing them up to at least the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) “C” rating for energy efficiency, as part of a post-COVID recovery stimulus package, whilst developing and upskilling the workforce by applying new methods and systems of refurbishments and construction.

It is being developed in a collaboration between the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), the Construction Innovation Hub, Peel Land and Property, Torus Group, Housing Associations, and Industry Partners.