energy efficiency standards for social housing

Energy Efficiency Standards for Social Housing in September


Social landlords model costs of meeting new energy standards

A number of housing associations and local authority landlords have taken part in an exercise to model what work would be required to meet new energy standards in their homes.

As the Scottish Government prepares to publish new Energy Efficiency Standards for Social Housing, in addition to testing the achievability of the standards, the work will also look at the likely cost of meeting the standards.

The modelling exercise follows discussions between representative bodies – the SFHA, Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum and COSLA – and the Scottish Government.

SFHA policy manager David Stewart (pictured) said: “We hope that this exercise will provide vital information on what the proposed standards will mean for a range of different landlords and whether meeting the standards is likely to be realistic and affordable.

“In order to look at the impact on a range of landlords and property types, the three representative bodies have asked members with different types of properties to model the costs.

“These include landlords with traditional tenements, landlords with properties that do not have access to mains gas and housing associations who have taken part in major transfers of stock.

“The work of these landlords will be extremely helpful in helping us understand the scale of the challenge faced by social landlords in meeting the standards.”

He added: “While housing associations and co-operatives have told us that they understand the need for energy efficiency standards in order to help meet climate change targets and address fuel poverty, social landlords are faced by a number of challenges including the likely reductions in income caused by the impact of welfare reform.

“It is important, therefore, that the cost of meeting the proposed standards are modelled and analysed ahead of publication of the standards.”

The Scottish Government aims to publish the Energy Efficiency Standards for Social Housing in September, with the standards to be met by 2020.

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