North East Mayor Kim McGuinness launched North East Warm Homes on 3 December 2025, a free energy advice service for residents across the region. The service is funded by the North East Combined Authority as part of a £4m initiative and is delivered by the Energy Saving Trust1.
It is available to residents in all seven local authority areas covered by the combined authority. The offer has three parts: free expert advice over the phone, in-home visits, and end-to-end support for energy efficiency improvements. The telephone advice line is available now. In-home visits are delivered in partnership with Groundwork North East and Cumbria and Community Action Northumberland, and provide free, impartial and personalised advice from qualified retrofit coordinators. The end-to-end service, described as paid for and delivered by Warmworks, covers each stage of a home improvement from initial assessment to installation1.
| Element of the service | Detail as announced |
|---|---|
| Telephone advice | Free, expert, available now |
| In-home visits | Delivered with Groundwork North East and Cumbria and Community Action Northumberland |
| End-to-end improvement support | Paid for, delivered by Warmworks |
| Online tool | Homewise, free, produces a personalised report |
The service also provides tailored advice for private tenants and landlords. Residents and landlords can use Homewise, a free online tool that creates a personalised energy efficiency report from property details, with estimated costs and potential savings. The measures covered range from draught proofing to insulation, heat pumps and solar panels1.
Announcing the initiative, McGuinness said:
"Heating bills are tough, so we're doing what we can to support families through the winter months. If we want to lift children out of hardship, we must tackle fuel poverty and keep money in hardworking families' pockets."
The announcement did not state how the £4m is divided between the telephone service, in-home visits and the Warmworks element, nor how many households the service expects to reach. Those figures have not been reported1.
Why it matters for households
The service gives households in the region a route to advice that does not depend on knowing which national scheme to apply for. For a home's energy independence, the practical value sits in the assessment stage: an in-home visit from a qualified retrofit coordinator identifies where a property loses heat and what improvements suit its construction, which is the step that usually determines whether later work performs as intended. The Homewise tool does a lighter version of the same job online, producing estimated costs and savings from property details alone1.
The end-to-end element is paid for, so it is not a grant, and the announcement does not say what it costs or how it is charged. Households comparing routes to funding can look at council and local authority energy grants and the Energy Company Obligation, which are separate from this service. The advice line itself is free, and the announcement describes the in-home visits as free and impartial1.
For households outside the North East, equivalent regional and national services exist, including Home Energy Scotland, NI Energy Advice and Cosy Homes Oxfordshire. A wider picture of regional retrofit advice provision is set out in Regional Retrofit Advice Services, and general routes into advice are covered in Free Home Energy Advice in England.
What happens next
The telephone advice service is available now on 0808 175 9345. No end date for the £4m initiative, and no target for the number of homes to be visited, has been reported1.
Sources1 cited
- Free energy advice service launches for North East residents, energysavingtrust.org.uk