Project to make homes warmer

Rotherham Council is to partner with Equans UK and Ireland to deliver warmer and more affordable homes and reduce fuel poverty as part of the pilot scheme.

Rotherham has received £1.5m from the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund towards the project which will see 141 homes in Maltby — in the top ten per cent of the most fuel-poor areas in the UK — benefit from measures including external wall and loft insulation, triple-glazed windows and energy efficient doors. The project, expected to save more than 96,000kg of CO2 a year, will be combined alongside a planned re-roofing programme to minimise disruption for residents.

Steve Batty, head of sustainability at technical, regeneration and energy services provider Equans, which has a site in Wath, said: “With energy bills set to continue rising for the foreseeable future, pushing more and more people into fuel poverty, it’s more important than ever that the private and public sectors work together on projects like this.”

Paul Walsh, assistant director for housing, said: “Initiatives like this are a crucial part of the council’s housing strategy. The efficiencies that will be saved through schemes like this one will make a huge difference to people’s lives. We are now looking at how we can extend this good practice in other parts of the borough.”

Work is scheduled to begin in November and will take around seven months to complete.