Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3
On 23rd September 2024 the Government announced that Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 would open for applications in the week beginning 30 September 2024 and will close at midday on 25 November 2024.
It also encouraged local authorities to start to prepare applications now for submission when the window opens.
Why Wave 3 I hear you ask? And what happened to waves 1 and 2?
Quite simply this new initiative is actually a continuation of the existing and very successful Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) which has been re-named and re-branded into the new Governments Warm Homes Plan. We can probably expect similar with other existing energy efficiency grants and schemes.
Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Explained
The objectinve of WH:SHF is to provide funding for local authorities and social housing landlords to improve the energy performance of social homes in England. It’s therefore not a grant you can apply for as a private customer (visit our section on energy efficiency grants for this), instad it a significant pot of money that’s made available to local authorites and social landlords to dip into in order to support domestic retrofit programs at scale.Â
It will provide matched funding for the upgrade of a significant amount of the social housing stock currently below Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band C up to that standard. It will do so through the installation of energy performance measures in social homes in England, and help:
- deliver warm, energy efficient homes
- reduce carbon emissions
- tackle fuel poverty
- support green jobs
- develop the retrofit sector
- improve the comfort, health and well-being of social housing tenants
Wave 3 builds on the allocations made under the previous waves of SHDF.
WH:SHF Wave 3 – Who’s It For?
As explained above, this scheme is aimed at social housing providers and so Wave 3 is open to the following groups:
- local authorities
- combined authorities
- registered providers of social housing (including housing associations and arms-length management organisations (ALMOs) that are registered providers)
- registered charities that own social housing
All eligible organisations can apply directly to Wave 3 either as single applicants or as the lead of a consortium.
The above organisations, along with ALMOs that are not registered providers, can apply as part of a consortium led by an organisation that is eligible.
There’s a couple of exceptions namely the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and their constituent local authorities. These will receive an alternative allocation of funding as part of the Government’s commitment to the pilots announced in the trailblazer devolution deals.
Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund – Property Eligibility
This particular sceme is aimed at improving the energy efficiency of domestic properties owned by social landlords. Therefore the eligibility criteria is solely based to the building.
All existing social housing as defined by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (sections 68 to 70), below  EPC  band C, regardless of archetype, are eligible.
WH:SHF – Retrofit At Scale
WH:SHF is all about retrofit at scale so all Wave 3 projects in the Challenge Fund should include a minimum of 100 eligible social housing properties at EPC band D to G, apart from in the case of small social housing landlords.
Small social housing landlords (those who own or manage fewer than 1,000 homes) can access funding with fewer than 100 homes. For such landlords, there is no minimum number of homes. We expect such landlords to try to reach 100 homes, or to actively consider joining a consortium given the benefits this can bring, where this is not possible.
Strategic Partners will be expected to propose projects of significant scale.
When Will Work Begin?
Delivery for Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 will run to September 2028. All grant funding for Wave 3 projects must be transferred to the grant recipient and spent by 31 March 2028, and projects can only use co-funding in the final 6 months of delivery.
WH:SHF Wave 3 – More Info
All the information we know so far is on the Government website – we’ll keep you informed as to progress of course.