The £97m plan to bring energy bills down in GM social housing

Improved insulation, air source heat pumps, solar panels, draught-proofing, ventilation and heating controls will be installed as part of the plans.

It comes as the city-region is granted £37m from the second round of the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.

A further £60m will be spent by local councils and housing associations towards the retrofit work.

Overall, 5,482 homes are set to benefit with the average annual energy bill coming down by £276.78 per household.

The work, which should be finished by September 2025, is expected to save 26,895,921 kWh of energy per year.

Most of the homes to benefit from the funding will be in Manchester where almost a third of properties are social housing.

Labour Cllr Gavin White said that a total of 3,129 homes in the city will benefit from this investment.

He said: “It’s going to really help reduce carbon emissions, bring cheaper bills for our residents and in addition to the 1,600 homes in our own council housing stock, there’s going to be a further 1,500 homes across the city with our partners Southway, One Manchester and Wythenshawe Community Housing Group.

"So in total 3,129 homes will get this investment for retrofitting – so lower fuel bills, lower carbon output and better housing for our residents.”

In total, Manchester council will receive £11m towards retrofitting its housing stock.

In addition to this, the local authority successfully bid for a further £10m in funding from the government’s Home Upgrade Grant 2 which will help fund improvements to approximately 500 privately-owned homes across the city.

A solar panel installation in Salford (Picture: GMCA)

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) led a consortium of 18 registered providers of social housing from across the city-region in its successful £37m bid, and these partner organisations have committed a further £60m of their own funding towards the project.

Work will commence in April with improvements being made to social housing in every borough.

Greater Manchester was previously awarded funding from Wave One in November 2021, kicking off a £19.6m programme of energy efficiency improvements to benefit more than 1,000 social homes.

The total number of properties to be retrofitted by each consortium member in this latest round is:

Bolton at Home: 188

First Choice Homes Oldham: 360

Great Places Housing: 319

Irwell Valley Housing Association: 157

Jigsaw Homes: 222

Johnnie Johnson Housing: 60

Manchester City Council: 1,603

Mosscare St Vincent Housing: 170

One Manchester: 87

Onward Homes: 176

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing: 33

Salix Homes: 176

Six Town Housing: 243

Southway Housing: 1,112

Stockport Homes Ltd: 76

Wythenshawe Community Housing Group: 233

Wigan Council: 172

Your Housing Group: 95

Councillors and contractors take a tour of a recently completed zero carbon 'retrofit' in Higher Blackley (Picture: Manchester City Council)

Bolton Council leader Martyn Cox, who is the GMCA’s lead for the Green City Region and waste and recycling, said: “Reducing the amount of energy used in our homes will be key to achieving our long-term environmental vision of being a carbon-neutral city-region by 2038.

Prioritising improvements to our social homes will help ensure some of the families most in need in Greater Manchester will benefit from our push to make the city-region a greener and fairer place for all, whilst also supporting the growth of the vitally needed retrofit employment sector.

“These measures will not just benefit our environment – they will reduce the costs of heating and lighting homes something that, now more than ever, residents are desperately concerned about.”

Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, said: “This investment will help thousands of households to heat their homes for less, keep them warm for longer and could save hundreds on their annual energy bill.

"The green energy sector is growing, and this funding will support green jobs and provide the training needed to deliver these vital upgrades to homes.”