Liverpool affordable housing provider Plus Dane to spend £10m in the next two years retrofitting homes in a push towards net zero carbon. Tony McDonough reports

Plus Dane Housing says it will spend £10m in the next two years retrofitting homes as part of a decarbonisation drive.

As an affordable housing provider, Plus Dane manages more than 18,000 homes across Merseyside and Cheshire. It has secured £4.5m from Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to put towards the latest project.

Plus Dane’s assets team has started to allocate the funding to projects across Merseyside, identifying its energy inefficient properties and investigating a range of options.

Previous retrofit projects have included extensive cavity, external wall and roof insulation and pilot scheme installation of a ground source heat pump at a development in Wirral.

Barry Callow, director of repairs at Plus Dane, said: “Funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is really making a difference to what we can achieve when looking to retrofit our homes.

READ MORE: Developer secures approval for 128,000 sq ft scheme

“Making our homes more energy efficient is a positive thing, not just as part of our obligation to meet net zero targets in the sector, but also for our customers who should see that they don’t need to use as much energy to keep their homes warm.”

Work is likely to begin in the autumn. Plus Dane previously received £1m from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund’s first wave, again allocated through the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

Mayor Rotheram has ramped up his retrofit programme after securing a further £42m from the Government to take the region’s total retrofit fund to £105m. This will be used to help 10,000 low-income homes to save money on their energy bills.