ALMOST £1 million is being invested in retrofitting 55 homes in West Devon to make them more energy efficient.

West Devon Borough Council will complete the work by March using government funding.

The council, in partnership with South Hams District Council, is the only local authority in Devon which applied for its own Home Upgrades Grant (HUG) rather than being part of a scheme led by Devon County Council.

It says it is delivering more retrofits as a result and has developed its own expertise in-house to benefit from future schemes.

Eligible households need to be on low incomes (earning not more than £36,000), are off the gas grid and have low-rating Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) of between D and G.

It is estimated that 10,000 properties in West Devon are rated D or below and “off-gas”, and 5,000 are in fuel poverty.

The council’s hub committee was told the work is complex and each home had to have its own retrofit design.

The average cost per home is £18,000 but principle environmental health officer David Sexton said one had cost almost £26,000.

The annual energy costs on this particular property had reduced by almost £2,000 and the EPC gone from F to a B, with 4.1 tonnes of carbon produced cut to 0.4 tonnes.

Many previous schemes dealt with easier-to-treat properties through loft and cavity insulation, the committee was told. The new grant focused on homes which, because of their nature and construction, were more difficult to treat and required more resources to do so.

Energy efficiency measures were previously installed at 40 properties in the borough under the Green Homes Grant project.

West Devon has worked in partnership with community energy groups to identify homes that would qualify for the funding, with two officers from the authority working on the project full-time across the two boroughs.

Another 55 homes are being retrofitted in the South Hams.

The efficiency measures usually include some sort of insulation, butcould also include cavity wall insulation, solid wall insulation, loft insulation, external wall insulation, draught proofing, underfloor insulation, low energy lighting, heat pumps or heating controls.

Councillors heard that registered housing providers can apply for their own funding to retrofit socially rented homes.

Members said it would be worth having a conversation with the borough’s main housing association LiveWest to see what it is doing to upgrade its properties.

Alison Stephenson

LDRS