Warm Homes as a National Asset

“We should view warm and comfortable homes as a national asset, and therefore treat our homes in that way, rather than as the individual’s responsibility to worry about and solve.”

That was the case Dr Donal Brown, Senior Researcher and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute and former chair of the RetrofitWorks cooperative, made to the Retrofit Society. Drawing on research co-developed with Madeleine Pauker of the University of Sussex, his central provocation was simple: “the problem is the delivery model, not the technology.”

Where we stand

Half of homes in England are energy inefficient, and 21 per cent of privately rented homes fail the Decent Homes Standard. Donal credited social landlords with real progress, but said private renters are still suffering, with rents climbing and conditions often poor. Bills are rising again, the UK still has some of the least efficient housing in Western Europe, and measures installed under government backed schemes have fallen from almost 2.4 million in 2012 to under 150,000 in 2024.

“This should be a national embarrassment, in my opinion, that we don’t have higher quality housing.”

Dr Donal Brown

The prize is large. Recent modelling published in Applied Energy suggests deep retrofit and heat pumps could add £1,125bn to UK GDP by 2050 from £491bn of additional investment, because money saved on bills is largely spent locally. Donal called it “a vast national infrastructure project, probably without parallel”.

Why delivery has stalled

Donal identified four structural problems.

• First, market mechanisms such as ECO[1] allocated funding by carbon saved, with pots rarely big enough for the whole job, which “driven the industry into cutting corners”. The National Audit Office found major defects in 98 per cent of homes with external wall insulation under ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme.

• Second, eligibility has narrowed so far that many people assume they do not qualify.

• Third, programmes tackling basic disrepair such as leaking roofs have been defunded.

• Fourth, local authority schemes perform better, but years of cuts have left little permanent capacity to deliver the devolved funding now on offer.

What homeowners told the researchers

A survey of 2,010 UK homeowners found that about half of 18 to 34 year olds plan to install a heat pump or solar panels within two years, against 2 to 9 per cent of over 65s. Landlords letting a property were around four times as likely as non landlords to plan a heat pump. Crucially, between 76 and 91 per cent in every age group would take a full cost grant, but only 31 to 55 per cent would take a government low interest loan, and fewer still a bank loan. For households most stressed by energy bills, willingness to use savings drops from 68 to 46 per cent.

“That is not the way you retrofit 28 million homes. We do need some kind of national, inclusive programme.”

Dr Donal Brown, on market offers that reach only “a certain engaged green milieu”

We have done this before

Madeleine’s historical research shows the UK has delivered housing improvement at scale before. In the 1970s more than 200,000 homes a year received improvement grants, often through area based programmes upgrading kitchens and bathrooms street by street. Between 1979 and 1987, grant funded loft insulation reached 3 million homes, and the state coordinated the switch of 14 million households from town gas to North Sea gas in under a decade. Donal’s own father delivered such programmes as director of housing in Hackney and Oxford.

The idea that homeowners alone should fix their homes dates only from a 1985 Green Paper, followed by means testing, supplier obligations and the end of renewal funding in 2011. Crucially, investment flowed when it served bigger strategic goals: home ownership, avoiding slum clearance, energy security and jobs.

A plan for places: Home Improvement Corporations

Donal welcomed the Warm Homes Plan’s new Warm Homes Agency, bigger role for councils and mixed tenure delivery from 2028, but warned that moving away from solid wall insulation “could be a mistake”. His alternative is around 30 Home Improvement Corporations at county or combined authority level: statutory, democratically accountable bodies covering all of England, upgrading whole streets regardless of tenure, funding repairs and retrofit together, and phased by local deprivation. They would employ workers directly through Direct Labour Organisations [2] on permanent, unionised contracts, helping build the estimated 140,000 strong workforce needed and diversify a sector that is 92 per cent male.

“We need to stop trying to just nudge households and treating this as an individual consumer choice, and really think about more broad based, area based programmes again.”

Dr Donal Brown

Questions from the room

Does the spark gap undermine the gas comparison? Donal agreed electricity costs must fall[3], but said heat pumps already offer a better experience. A £19,000 install, he argued, shows we are not thinking systematically, and he called for street and substation level planning of heat solutions.

Outcomes, not inputs. A participant urged a focus on bills, quality and resident experience rather than measures and eligibility. Donal agreed, noting cheap monitoring now makes outcome based delivery practical.

Health co-benefits

Donal framed warm homes as part of a “low carbon social contract” justified by health, energy security and secure work as well as lower bills. Funding repairs alongside retrofit tackles damp and disrepair that directly affect residents’ health, while place based delivery can reach private renters and low income owners living alongside social housing residents.

Questions for housing providers to reflect on

1. Where your homes sit in mixed tenure streets, what would it take for you to lead or join a street by street programme that also reaches owner occupied and privately rented neighbours?

2. How much of your retrofit delivery capacity is permanent and in house, and what have short funding cycles cost you in skills and quality?

3. Are you measuring retrofit by measures installed, or by the outcomes residents feel in their bills, warmth and health?

Key takeaways

1. The barrier is the delivery model, not the technology. Individual responsibility, narrow eligibility and fragmented market delivery explain the collapse in installations.

2. Grants reach everyone; loans reach the few. Large majorities in every group would accept a full grant, while self funding is concentrated among younger households and landlords.

3. Scale has been achieved before. Universal, area based programmes worked when they served wider goals. Health, energy security and good jobs could be that case today.

[1]ECO (Energy Company Obligation): a scheme requiring larger energy suppliers to fund energy efficiency measures, paid for through a levy on customers’ bills. Government has announced the end of this supplier obligation model.

[2]Direct Labour Organisation (DLO): an in-house workforce employed directly by a council or public body rather than subcontracted.

[3] Spark gap: the difference between the unit price of electricity and of gas, which reduces the running cost advantage of heat pumps.

Retrofit Society 2:0 , October 2026, panel write up

Image credit: Healthy Homes Hub