Funding announced to lower fuel costs and emissions in Liverpool homes

Nearly 2,500 homes across the Liverpool City Region will benefit from measures to reduce heating bills and carbon emissions, as the Combined Authority has secured £28.5m in funding from government.

The funding from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will be spread across all six local authorities and will mean that homes will be fitted with insulation, double glazing, heating systems and other renewable and low carbon technologies.

The latest funding is in addition to a previous £11.3m scheme which is currently seeing around 1,100 homes fitted with efficiency measures.

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.’

Cllr Graham Morgan, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Portfolio Holder for housing and Spatial Planning, added: ‘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.’

Photo by Jean Carlo Emer