Government cuts put future eco plans at risk

Published by Richard Lord for Wakefield & District Housing in Housing and also in Bill Payments, Central Government, Environment, Local Government

A housing association’s five-year plan to install solar panels to a third of its homes is now up for review as a result of proposed government cut-backs.

Wakefield and District Housing (WDH), which manages over 30,000 properties in the Wakefield district, says their improvement works would have generated £30m for the local economy but a reduction in the Government’s ‘feed-in’ subsidy would force the company to reconsider its plans.

WDH recently unveiled theUK’s largest ‘zero carbon’ housing development at Park Dale, in Castleford,West Yorkshire, where each home is fitted with 35m² of solar panels.

Further work to install solar panels to 11 existing homes in Ferrybridge gave WDH the chance to earn the accreditation it needed to deliver sustainable solutions to thousands more homes.

The programme represented a significant investment in training the WDH workforce to be able to carry out the entire process of installing solar panels – from identifying suitable homes to fitting the panels and connecting them to meters – themselves without the need to use contractors.

However, any further work to deliver solar energy to tenants might now be delayed in light of the proposed Government cut-backs, which are expected to be confirmed at the end of the month.

Kevin Dodd, chief executive for WDH, explained: “Our improvement programme to install solar panels to existing homes was planned to be completed in the next five years.

“However, with the Government’s recent announcement to cut the subsidy for electricity generated by solar panels in half, we will now have to re-think our plans and possibly deliver it in 20 years or even longer.

“This is bad news for our tenants and the local economy as saving money on energy bills is converted into spending money in local shops. We calculate that energy savings from our planned improvement works would have generated £30 million for the local economy. This is obviously a massive loss if these works have to be postponed or do not go ahead.”