Aster Group to invest an additional £1m in homes across South West to help reduce energy bills
Housing association Aster Group has been awarded £530,000 to improve the energy efficiency of just over 100 of its customers’ homes in Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.
The funding is part of the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Wave 2 and will be matched by Aster, providing £1.1m for the works overall.
The money will be used to improve the fabric of the homes, including the installation of roof, cavity, and external wall insulation, more efficient windows and solar photovoltaic panels. The upgrades will help to lower energy bills by keeping the homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer, providing an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of C as a minimum.
Aster received the money along with a consortium of 11 other registered providers operating in the South West, after submitting a joint application for £24.8m of funding via the South West Net Zero Hub, which is managed by the West of England Authority. Around 1,000 social homes in the region will benefit from the improvements to boost energy efficiency thanks to the success of the joint bid.
Adam Hackett, Aster Group transformation director – sustainability, said: “Our ambition is to have every one of our customers’ homes receiving an EPC rating of C or above by 2030, and to reach net zero by 2050.
“This funding will build on our existing significant investment programme by providing measures that really matter to our customers. It will kick-start our retrofit programme, enabling us to invest in 103 homes across our region to make them more energy efficient, thereby helping to reduce carbon and our customers’ heating bills in the longer term.”
