The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) announced on 22 March 2023 that it had secured £34 million of government funding to retrofit around 3,000 social homes and privately-owned homes occupied by low income households across the region1. The funding is matched by a further £35 million from registered social housing providers, bringing the total to about £70 million1.
The work covers better insulation, new doors and windows, and greener heating systems, and is targeted at homes with an energy performance rating of D or below1. The WMCA said the funding would treble the number of homes it is making more energy efficient1.
The £34 million is made up of two streams. £16 million comes from the Home Upgrade Grant, for off gas grid homes in Birmingham, Dudley and Sandwell, as part of a Midlands Net Zero Hub consortium bid that secured £140 million for the wider Midlands area1. A further £18 million comes through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, with £35 million of match funding from 15 registered housing providers1. Those providers are Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council; Community Housing Group; Orbit Housing Group; Midland Heart Housing Association; Solihull Community Housing; St Basils Housing Association; Nehemiah Housing Association; Bromford Housing Group; Witton Lodge CIC; Make it Sustainable; The Elizabeth Dowell's Almshouse Trust; St Johns Church; Balsall Heath Housing Cooperative; Cannock Chase District Council; and Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council1.
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA chair, said:
"Improving the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock is essential if we're going to lower energy bills for local people and provide residents with warmer and better insulated homes."
The WMCA estimates that 1.2 million homes across the region will need to be retrofitted to meet its #WM2041 net zero target1. Its SMART Hub initiative has already enabled it to attract more than £44 million of government funding1.
Why it matters for households
For the households in the roughly 3,000 homes covered, the practical effect is physical work on the building: insulation, doors, windows and heating1. Measures of this kind are aimed at cutting energy bills and carbon emissions, in the WMCA's words, and the targeting at EPC D or below concentrates the work on homes that are relatively costly to heat1. The funding is split between social housing and privately-owned homes occupied by low income households, so it reaches both tenures, though the WMCA has not reported how the 3,000 figure divides between them1.
For homes outside the programme, nothing changes directly. The scheme is a regional allocation rather than an open application route for individual households, and the WMCA has not reported how residents would be identified or approached. The wider context is scale: the WMCA puts the number of homes needing retrofit across the region at 1.2 million against around 3,000 in this round1. The energy efficiency of the UK housing stock and the help available to low income households in England set that gap in context, and home energy grants in England covers the national schemes the two funding streams come from.
What happens next
The WMCA said the Deeper Devolution Deal, announced the week before, hands the region control of a central pot of funding and ends the need to competitively bid for defined projects1. It said this would open a more sustained flow of funding and give greater flexibility in planning and delivery, including building the supply chain, training a retrofit workforce and drawing in private finance1. No dates for the start or completion of the 3,000 retrofits have been reported1.