Housing upgrades can boost economy

Business bosses in the North East are calling for social housing upgrades to be used as an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and a training opportunity for people.

North East England Chamber of Commerce has written to the Government calling on it to use home modernisations, aimed at reducing carbon emissions, to increase work opportunities.

Chamber chief executive James Ramsbotham said: “Retrofitting is a key opportunity for the North East. We urge Government to work with councils and housing associations in order to reach their target son de carbonising housing ."

Chamber member Thirteen Housing Group’s executive director of business growth, Chris Smith, said: “We fully support the Chamber’s approach. We are acutely aware of the enormity of the task in hand and the gaps in the current market that need to be addressed to enable us to achieve our decarbonisation targets.”

Retrofitting and the decarbonisation of housing is a key part of the Government’s net-zero strategy and it has a target to decarbonise 25 million homes by 2050 – 833,000 homes a year.

Mr Ramsbotham added: “The drive towards Net Zero presents an opportunity for jobs and reskilling as part of the North East’s recovery from Covid. However, we need the Government to increase public awareness and confidence in new heating technology. Government-backed incentives around retrofitting and energy costs would also help to increaseinitial public demand to have this work done.”

"Without people agreeing to have gas boilers replaced it will be impossible for the Government to reach its target.