The BBC this morning is reporting that vouchers worth £5000 are to be made available to homeowners to put towards energy-saving home improvements. The good news is the double glazing is to be included in the scheme.

You can find the original article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53313640

The scheme is part of a wider £3bn effort to reduce carbon emissions, with the voucher scheme falling under the Green Homes Grant. Under the proposed scheme, the Government is going to pay for up to two-thirds of home improvements that save energy. Music to the ears of the fenestration sector.

The BBC article gives an example of how it would work:

For example, a homeowner of a semi-detached or end-of-terrace house could install cavity wall and floor insulation for about £4,000 – the homeowner would pay £1,320 while the government would contribute £2,680.

It’s a significant package on the face of it. More detail will be announced in the coming days about the scheme I am sure. I have to give credit for the Chancellor Rishi Sunak for the idea. Fenestration has long been overlooked when new schemes have been announced in the past so it’s nice to see our industry being recognised, especially when our products can have such a major impact on reducing heat loss.

However, the only concern I have about this is that the scheme doesn’t look set to go live until September. That is still a significant amount of time away. My fear is that people who were planning to have work done soon will put that off until the scheme goes live when they can claim their voucher. After all the energy and surge we have built up since coming back to work, I’m worried that the fizz could slide away as people put the brakes on until September. Its the same concern shown by the housing market and the proposed stamp duty holiday. They want the holiday implemented now rather than in the Autumn as they too are worried that people will simply slam on the brakes until the stamp duty holiday takes effect, which would plunge the market into the deep freeze until then.

So long as the scheme is nowhere near as complicated as the Green Deal mess of an idea years ago, this should work. But I would urge the Chancellor to implement this scheme way sooner than September, else risk the public holding back spending until then.

To get weekly updates from DGB sent to your inbox, enter your email address in the space below to subscribe:

By subscribing you agree to DGB sending you weekly email updates with all published content on this website, as well as any major updates to the services being run on DGB. Your data is never passed on to third parties or used by external advertising companies. Your data is protected and stored on secure servers run by Fivenines UK Ltd.

Explore more of DGB…

DGB10
DGB Events