Leading from the front: Driving sustainability through the retrofit agenda in the North-east of England

“Moving the retrofit agenda to scale is a big challenge – particularly for quality outcomes, and it just means some of the challenges are slightly more intense,” said Tom Jarman, director of Low Carbon Journey

Jarman was speaking at the Building the Future Think Tank’s second regional roundtable for 2024, which took place last month and focused on the role of the sector’s retrofit strategy, with a particular focus on the North-east of England.

Regional importance

Ross Lowrie, principal manager (low carbon growth and net zero) at the North East Combined Authority, said this issue was integral for everyone in the North-east. 

“We are in one of the more cold parts of the country and we have the worst-quality housing in the country that has the worst-quality housing stock in Europe,” he said.

Paul Mann, regional director for consultancy in the North of England at Gleeds, agreed that the work being done in retrofit space was extremely significant to the region given the impact of climate change and the makeup of the housing stock.

He said: “The work in this arena in the region is being pushed by the genuine need.”

Asimina Cole, environment manager at Re:Gen, said the growth of their business showed the region’s commitment to tackling the issue. 

She said “Re:Gen has grown from an SME to a true medium-sized business within four years, and that [retrofit and refurbishment] is solely the work we do.”

Catriona Lingwood, chief executive of Constructing Excellence in the North-east, added: “The work Re:Gen is doing to promote the regional retrofit agenda is also the work it is doing on industry-led skills training in core competencies.”

But Oliver Jones, associate director for sustainability and innovation at Cundall, said that while the need and commitment in the region was clear, there needed to be a certain amount of caution.

He said: “We are being driven by a lurching in policy from left to right and up and down that means a lot of the approach has been very, very piecemeal. As an example, we are wrapping all our buildings in insulation, which is great, but the truth is the world is still getting hotter, and we are creating a timebomb that in 10 years we will all need air-conditioners, which will be even worse for the climate.” 

The need for trust

Despite the consensus that there is a desperate need for retrofit, not only in the North-east but across the country, how to get householders on board can be a challenge. 

The group agreed that social housing providers especially, but also owner-occupiers, were moving in the right direction. However, the private rental landlords – a dominant tenure in the region – were seen to be woefully behind.

“There is a lack of trust and a lack of long term. We would be delighted to step back if the private sector could take over. Local authorities have a role to play – it’s a trust issue that needs to be built house by house, community by community, street by street. We need a viable, sustainable, long-term funding and plan for retrofit. What’s happening at the moment is too stop-start – what you want is devolved funding,” Lowrie said.

But Lee Peachey, co-founder and director of Green Leaf Engineering, said that while there were issues getting widespread buy-in, it was imperative to remember the North-east was doing relatively well. “The truth is we are leading on a lot of fronts as a region,” said Peachey. “We do undoubtefly need a plan to scale that up, but it’s important that we do recognise the positives.”

Paul Steadman, head of sustainability at Northumbria University, agreed that there was a definite need for collaboration to get all parties involved and amp up delivery.

The resourcing issue

Jones said that the industry and government needed to work together to get the cash required to finance a project of this scale. “Our government can’t afford this. So we need a long-term, well-articulated plan to attract private sector investment.”

Jarman agreed, saying that – making some assumptions – the cost of retrofitting the country’s housing stock would be astronomical, coming in at an estimated for £550m a week for decades.

“But what government and industry both need to keep in mind is that all this comes connected with a huge amount of employability – all of this will flow via the sector and we will need the people to do that,” he said.

Stuart MacKinder, regional building services manager at Bowmer + Kirkland, said the resourcing challenge went beyond finance to skills, and not just sourcing green skills either.

He said: “We need to find a way to bring more people in. The main problem is attracting anyone into construction, rather than just green skills. We have a real issue and that is compounding the problems we are facing with green skills.”

The panel agreed that skills and in particular green skills were a key area that needed addressing in order to propel the sustainability and retrofit programmes.

Nik Turner, executive director of communities and customer services at Believe Housing, said while the North-east wanted to succeed, it needed the appropriate tools to do so.

“Skills growth, including the skills for bidding for retrofit funding, need to be developed. We have seen the ability for industry to pull together on these things, and it can be a real strength. But we need a collaborative approach.”

What the sector in the North-east of England wants

As the roundtable approached its end after an hour and a half of vigorous debate, the panellists were asked to look ahead and come up with the policies they would like to see introduced by the new government.

Responses (see panel above) included suggestions on the need for an immediate and consistent response, and for industry and government involvement.

The key takeaways for the think tank when considering the North-east of England were on the significance of access to finance in the retrofit market, a focus on skills, and the need for public buy-in.