Resident Engagement: The Retrofit Make-or-Break
09/10/2025
Matt Chenery
Early, Meaningful Engagement is No Longer Optional
Resident engagement in retrofit is not just a “nice to have” — it is the difference between delivering projects successfully and handing grant money back to government. That was the clear message from Claire Brown, Senior Consultant at Turner & Townsend, and one of CITB’s 2024 most influential women in construction allies.
“I think it’s really about appreciating that we’re human,” says Brown. “Anyone in a home should have that level of respect and understanding. They will have stresses in their life that might mean they don’t have the capacity to think about what on earth a heat pump is.”
Her point is starkly illustrated by a growing trend: housing providers unable to spend Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) or Warm Homes Grant allocations, not because the need isn’t there, but because they cannot secure resident consent in time.
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