Torus, with the support of Mayor Steve Rotheram and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA), will deliver £21.2m worth of low-carbon upgrades 695 homes in the Liverpool, St Helens, and Warrington areas.

Last week, the Government’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ), announced that the Liverpool City Region’s bid for monies from the latest wave of funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund had been successful in securing £31.7m – as well as £10.35m from the second round of the Home Upgrade Grant scheme - taking the region’s total retrofit investment to £105m.

From that, Torus will be awarded £5.8m, which will be further bolstered by the organisation with £15.4m of funding. This will see a total of £21.2m spent on retrofitting homes across Torus communities over the next two years.

Benefits

This investment will see 695 existing Torus properties benefit from a range of retrofit energy-efficiency improvements. These could include replacement of double glazing, doors, loft insulation, ventilation improvements, main roof renewal, Solar PV Panels, battery storage, cavity and solid wall insulation, as well as external decoration to improve the aesthetics of people’s homes.

These improvement works will help to reduce energy usage and energy bills, improving the overall Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings from D to C, which is incredibly important right now, with many tenants experiencing real hardship because of the cost-of-living crisis.

The works will also benefit the environment by helping to reduce carbon emissions, which supports Torus’ wider environmental sustainability strategy, which will play a key role helping the Liverpool City Region and Warrington achieve net zero by 2040 and 2030, respectively.

In 2021/22 Torus spent £12.9m on improving energy efficiency in their customers’ homes, include the £3.7m to help 337 homes in Liverpool to become more environmentally friendly, saving 176 tonnes of carbon per year.

Improving health and wellbeing

Chief Operating Officer at Torus, Catherine Murray-Howard, said:

“Torus is all about its customers and improving their lives which is why this funding is so warmly welcomed because it means we can help our communities as energy bills keep and general living costs keep rising.

“In an ideal world, everyone should be able to enjoy a warm home without worrying if they can afford it and these works will hopefully go towards helping people achieve this.

“Not only will these new measures help our customers save money, but improve their health and general wellbeing too, while simultaneously reducing harmful emissions.”

Net Zero ambition

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said:

“With the cost-of-living crisis continuing to place some of our most vulnerable households under increasing strain, this funding really couldn’t have arrived at a better time. To date our retrofit programme has helped thousands of households across our area to save hundreds of pounds on their energy bills and enabled us to dramatically reduce household carbon emissions across the region.

“Currently, domestic properties account for nearly a third of all the emissions we produce as a city region. It is a statistic that we simply cannot afford to ignore, especially if we are serious about our ambition to be net zero by 2040 at the latest – at least a decade before national government targets.

“The fact that we have secured this additional funding is testament to the difference we are making and, most importantly, means that we can continue to protect even more households from rising energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions along the way.”

Along with the works to improve their homes, Torus customers will also benefit from additional support with energy advice and opportunities to understand the retrofit process and net zero targets.

Torus’s carbon retrofit projects in Warrington, St Helens, and Liverpool all will be delivered over the next two years. SHDF retrofit works have already started at Kingsway House in Warrington and the next project, which will see 42 flats on Kirk Street (Everton, L5) receive a range of works that will improve both energy efficiency and the aesthetics of the scheme, is due to start in the summer and the final project, a whole house retrofit of a solid wall terraced house, will start in 2024.