Wales Update: The New Warm Homes Programme

The Welsh Government has recently published a policy statement for the Warm Homes Programme. which provides funding for energy efficiency improvements to low-income households and those living in deprived communities across Wales.

The Programme consists of the Welsh Government’s Nest and Arbed Schemes both of which aim to improve the energy efficiency of homes in Wales. Since the Programme’s launch in 2011, more than £420m has been invested to improve home energy efficiency benefitting more than 73,000 lower income households.

The Programme aims to achieve its objectives in two parts:

1. By producing a replacement demand-led service to assist those least able to pay for and respond to the cost of living crisis, and
2. By developing a whole housing stock approach to decarbonisation to provide a long-term strategy for energy efficiency, fuel poverty and decarbonisation for the sector.

Welsh Minister for Climate Change, Julie James, has stated that the “new scheme will tackle both climate emergency and fuel poverty” and it will “focus on supporting the worst-off households in the poorest condition buildings in the owner-occupied, private rented and housing co-operative sectors.”

Contract-holders who receive means-tested benefits or who have health conditions that result in them being at risk of ill health due to living in a cold home may be eligible for home improvements at no cost to themselves or their landlords.