£250,000 grant for eco upgrade to South Side flats
THE Scottish Funding Council has awarded around £250,000 to Glasgow University to help fund a new sustainable housing project in Glasgow’s South Side.
As part of the Climate Emergency Collaboration Challenge, a block of eight tenements on Niddrie Road in Strathbungo will be retrofitted to allow changes to the building that will see carbon emissions significantly reduce.
The retrofit will also allow for real-life testing of how best to solve sustainability issues in older housing stock such as Glasgow’s pre1919 tenements.
The principal of the university, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, said: “I’m delighted to see this example of the university and partners across Glasgow working together for the benefit of the city – and as we face the climate emergency, there has never been a more important time to ensure that we are able to marshal all of Glasgow’s expertise across a range of disciplines and sectors.
“As we approach COP26 later this year, Glasgow and Scotland have an incredible opportunity to demonstrate to the world how we are at the forefront of the fight against climate change – and this exciting new project is just one of the ways in which our university is leading the way in the city.”
The partnership will see organisations such as Glasgow University, Glasgow City Council and Southside Housing Association come together as the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence to lead the project in helping Glasgow become the UK’s first Net Zero city by 2030.
Glasgow will also host the COP26 summit in November, with more than 200 world leader descending on the city to discuss a new response to the climate emergency.
Glasgow City Council leader, Councillor Susan Aitken, said: “Glasgow’s historic tenements give our city so much of its built identity.
“But they also present significant challenges in our collective efforts to reduce emissions.
“This project in Govanhill gives us an opportunity to crack that problem, creating a template which has the potential to make major inroads towards our net zero target, create warmer homes, reduce fuel bills and retain our characteristic housing stock.”
Academic lead for the project and director of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, Professor Kenneth Gibb, added: “Older housing is a key source of the carbon challenge, especially our pre-1919 tenements.
“This demonstration project allows us to both learn about this particular form of retrofit and to assess how best to scale up and provide replicable solutions across the range of Glasgow tenements.”
The £500,000 climate emergency fund was created by the Scottish Government in August 2019, as a response to the targets set in place by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of the country becoming carbon neutral by 2045.
Ivan McKee, Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation, said: “We are facing a global climate emergency and one of the major challenges is not only how we build in the future, but reducing carbon emissions from existing housing stock.
“As these projects demonstrate, innovation plays a key part in this and will help us reach our ambitious, world-leading target to reach net-zero by 2045.
“We continue to engage with public bodies, businesses, communities and individuals at every opportunity to address the challenge we all face.”