July 2013: The Mayor has approved further interim funding for his domestic energy efficiency funding programme RE:NEW. The approval form MD1199 states that an allocation of £150,000 will be provided to a new interim Programme Delivery Unit (PDU) which is to be part of a programme to “stimulate a step change in the level of domestic retrofit activity in London” . Other actions include:
- An early delivery programme through DECC’s award of over £5 million funding for fuel poverty, Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) projects in 18 boroughs.
- A project to help boroughs remove barriers that can be overcome using local powers, such as planning and parking, which currently inhibit retrofit activity in London.
- Development of a social housing retrofit programme: the GLA is working with social housing providers, boroughs, ALMOs and large private landlords to develop a pipeline of ECO projects that can be contracted through the RE:NEW framework. This pipeline now has over £87 million capital value of energy efficiency projects being reviewed.
- Development of a RE:NEW delivery model that can best maximise Green Deal and ECO, as well as being adaptable to new funding schemes and sources. The model that has been identified is providing a Programme Delivery Unit to manage the analysis, tendering, delivery and tracking of delivery in social housing, private rented sector and owner occupier sectors across London for both Green Deal and ECO.
However, the approval document goes on to say “While the development of the ECO social housing pipeline has been successful, the resource will not be in place to deliver the projects through to the RE:NEW framework until the full business case has been finalised and funding sought. To avoid a slowdown in delivery during this period, we intend to procure interim support to help manage the early pipeline of projects that have been developed through our work with social housing landlords.”