As part of the government’s Warm Homes Plan, £5bn has been assigned to the Warm Homes: Local Grant scheme, with an aim to lift 1m households out of fuel poverty by 2030.

You could be eligible to receive up to £30,000 worth of energy efficient home improvement works, if your home’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating is D or worse (on a scale of A-G where A is brilliant). You can find your home’s rating (if it has one) here: www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate. Don’t worry if your home doesn’t have an EPC yet, as an assessment will be conducted as part of the grant process.

The scheme is open to all private sector housing, i.e. residents who own their home, or rent from a private landlord (there is separate funding available for social landlords). If you own your home, the work will be fully free. Private landlords can get their first property upgraded for free, they then receive a 50% grant to help improve any other properties in their portfolio.

What’s available?

The maximum £30,000 is split into two categories, with up to £15,000 being made available for Low Carbon Heat, and up to £15,000 for Energy Performance Upgrades.

There is no ‘shopping list’ for residents to choose from, instead a Retrofit Coordinator will determine the most suitable, and cost-effective measures from the following lists:

Low Carbon Heat

• Heat Pumps
• High heat retention electric storage heaters
• Solid biomass

Energy Performance Upgrades

• Double/triple glazing
• Draughtproofing
• Energy efficient doors
• External wall insulation
• Internal wall insulation
• Park home insulation
• Smart controls
• Solar Photovoltaic Panels (PV)
• Solar PV batteries
• Solar thermal

Who is eligible?

In addition to the property needing to be inefficient, there are additional eligibility requirements, represented by the following three routes to support:

Route 1: Postcode

One of the priorities for this grant scheme is to improve properties in deprived communities, according to the English Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).

We’ve collated a list of the postcodes that are entitled to work through this scheme, broken down by Local Authority area:

https://www.epplus.org.uk/what-we-do/advice/warm-homes-local-grant-postcode-checker/

Route 2: Low Income

If your postcode doesn’t make you eligible, you can still apply if you have a low household income. This is usually stated as being a total, combined household income of less than £36,000. You must include the incomes of everybody within the household, including adult children, but you shouldn’t include the income of any lodgers, as they aren’t part of your household.

If your income is higher than £36,000 and you have a large family (i.e. 4 or more children), then you might still be eligible through this route, as it’s possible to take housing costs and household composition into account, so it’s still worth enquiring.

Route 3: Welfare benefits

If your total, combined household income is over £36,000, but somebody within the household is in receipt of one or more of the following income-related welfare benefits, then you could still be eligible for the scheme:

• Universal Credit  
• Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit)  
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)  
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)  
• Housing Benefit  
• Working Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit 

How to apply

Government has a webpage available that will guide you through the process of applying. Currently this is only calibrated to help owner-occupiers apply via the Postcode eligibility route, or the low income route of total combined household income under £36,000. 

https://www.gov.uk/apply-warm-homes-local-grant

If you are a landlord, a tenant, or wish to apply through the welfare benefits route, then you will need to make contact with your Local Authority to enquire:

Need help applying?

You can contact us by calling our Save Energy Advice Line, free of charge, on 0800 043 0151.
Or you can email us at advice@epplus.org or you can use our online self-referral form: www.epplus.org.uk/contact