Scores of homes to go green in council plan
MORE than 150 social houses in east Manchester are to get a green makeover as part of a multi-million project.
They will get new roofs and windows as part of the work to make them airtight and energy-efficient.
They will then sit alongside the new ‘super eco’ gas free homes being built in Beswick.
Town hall bosses say retrofitting older social and council properties to bring them up to modern energy standards is vital for tackling the climate emergency but is currently ‘one of the key challenges facing the city’ due to its cost. The council and housing provider One Manchester have now been helped in that regard after receiving £3.12m in grant funding from a £50m government pot of cash.
And they have announced it will be used to transform a total of 164 properties in Beswick, east Manchester, with chiefs saying residents will get warmer homes and cheaper energy bills as a result.
The programme of work, designed by Constructive Thinking Studio, will be a ‘Whole House Retrofit’ done in stages to improve airtightness and thermal insulation while keeping disruption and costs to a minimum it is said.
One Manchester is currently in the process of building 25 new ‘super eco’ social homes on land on Blackrock Street in Beswick which will be gasfree, and constructed using a panellised method to make them extremely energy efficient.
Coun Suzanne Richards, executive member for housing and regeneration at Manchester council, said: “Retrofitting older social and council housing is one of the key challenges we face as a city. Many of these homes do not meet modern energy efficiency expectations, but the options for retrofitting are extremely expensive to undertake at scale.
“Councils and housing associations can’t meet these costs alone but we know that bringing older homes up to modern efficiency standards is vital if we’re serious about meeting our target of become a zero-carbon city by 2038. That’s why it is such good news to have this first phase of funding confirmed so that we can begin working with our housing partners to tackle decarbonisation head-on.”