Funding success for Lancashire’s ground-breaking retrofit operation leads to ‘hard to treat’ homes focus at Retrofit Summit 

The granddaddy of collaborative local authority retrofit programmes is now turning its attention to Lancashire’s hard to treat homes after nearly nine years of delivering energy efficiency measures into over 20,000 homes. 

Cosy Homes in Lancashire (ChiL) is expecting further funding of around £40m to land in 2023, and the coalition is gearing up to tackle two of the biggest challenges in housing retrofit by holding its second Lancashire Retrofit Summit online from 21-23 March. 

The next phase of spending will be focused on overcoming the difficulties and barriers caused by planning and other restrictions on listed buildings and homes in Conservation Areas or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The other focus will be on incentivising and supporting private landlords to decarbonise their properties where the person paying for energy efficiency measures is not the same as the person paying the energy bills. 

CHiL was founded after a collaboration between the Lancashire Home Energy Officers Group (LHEOG) and Blackpool Public Health which commissioned a review into home energy efficiency in 2013. One of the recommendations that came out of the study was for a Lancashire-wide scheme to be developed and controlled by the LHEOG: this was branded as ‘Cosy Homes in Lancashire’. 

One of the driving forces behind the initiative was Dr Arif Rajpura, Director of Public Health at Blackpool Council who will provide the keynote speech at the 2023 Lancashire Retrofit Summit. 

“CHiL is a partnership of 15 local authorities in Lancashire, and retrofit measures are delivered by managing agent Rhea Projects,” says Graham Lock of event organisers Low Carbon Homes. “In just under nine years, the scheme has secured over £40m of funding, helping more than 20,000 residents to save money through energy saving advice and measures, and it is hailed as an examplar in collaborative and effective retrofit for energy efficiency by the energy sector and Government alike.” 

The Summit takes place online and is free to attend over three mornings from 21-23 March. 

On Day 1 Rhea Projects and CHiL partners will give overviews from their different perspectives on progress so far and how this has been achieved, providing a miniature training course in how to deliver retrofit at scale with multiple partners for benefits across health and wellbeing as well as poverty relief. 

Day 2 will see speakers from The Green Register outline ways to tackle ‘hard to treat’ homes where the challenges lie in regulatory restrictions as much as in building fabric. 

On Day 3, speakers such as Dr Lisa Newson from Liverpool John Moores University will address landlord and tenant engagement while David Kemp from Turner & Townsend will discuss the funding and support available for landlords in this sector.  

Providing decarbonisation industry expertise are the event’s partners: Adaptavate, Jigsaw Infrared, IndiNature, E.ON and Stelrad. 

The Lancashire Retrofit Summit is free to attend online using the dynamic REMO event platform across three mornings from 9am-12pm from 21-23 March, enabling housing providers and local authority staff as well as installers, contractors, consultants and surveyors to drop in from any location to suit their schedules. 

The online networking and Q&A format lets attendees participate in the discussion, asking questions and sharing knowledge to enable effective collaboration with other professionals in housing retrofit, local authority project delivery and community engagement. 

To sign up to attend this free online event, go to https://lowcarbonhomes.uk/events   

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About CHiL 

CHiL was developed by the 15 Local Authorities in Lancashire following a comprehensive energy efficiency study commissioned by Blackpool Public Health in 2013. The scheme has the backing of all the Chief Executives and the Directors of Public Health. and covers all Council backed energy saving initiatives in the County and it offers an accessible and straightforward means of accessing grants from energy companies and other sources to fund new heating measures, insulation and renewable technologies in domestic properties. 

Since the scheme launched in 2014 we have successfully secured over £40million of funding which has helped more than 20,000 residents to save money through energy saving advice and measures. In 2021/22 and 2022/23 CHiL helped 2400 households to access the Green Home Grant - Local Authority Delivery scheme to have insulation, upgraded windows and doors and renewable technologies installed.