Much of the UK’s housing stock is poorly insulated and energy inefficient (1). As a result, many households spend winters living in cold homes or struggling with high heating bills. Increasingly warm summers also mean homes are harder to keep cool. These conditions are not only uncomfortable but harmful to health, particularly for people living in poor-quality housing who face high energy costs and have limited ability to invest in the improvements needed to change their situation (2–4).
At the Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC), our research has consistently highlighted these challenges (5–10). We have seen how difficult it can be for households to achieve basic comfort at home, and how some are forced into the unacceptable choice between heating and eating (11). Our work also shows that, compared with short-term bill support, well-designed energy efficiency measures deliver lasting benefits for households experiencing fuel poverty, while also supporting wider economic outcomes (12).
Today, the UK government announced its long-awaited initiative to tackle energy poverty, reduce energy bills, and improve home energy efficiency, alongside measures designed to strengthen the country’s energy system and construction workforce.
The Warm Homes Plan places energy demand reduction at its core, which we welcome.
The plan is based on the principle that reducing energy demand is essential to achieving permanently lower energy bills. It proposes long-term solutions through the installation of solar panels and batteries, cleaner heating systems, and improved insulation. Importantly, this ambition is backed by £15 billion in funding, with a focus on supporting lower-income households.
Policies to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s housing stock are not new. While details of delivery for the Warm Homes Plan are yet to be finalised, the government has signalled an intention to work with local and regional partners as part of its approach. This creates the potential for a shift away from centrally administered schemes towards more locally informed and co-ordinated delivery, depending on how the programme is ultimately designed. The plan also includes expanded access to low-interest loans, helping to make energy-efficiency measures more affordable for owner-occupiers. In addition, stronger energy performance standards for rental properties have the potential to be transformative for tenants, reducing energy bills and improving the health and comfort of their homes.
This approach to housing retrofit gives organisations with detailed knowledge of local building stock and community needs the opportunity to target investment where it can be most effective and equitable. It reflects a growing recognition that reducing housing energy demand is shaped by social and spatial factors, and that these vary across places (13). However, our research suggests that success will depend on local authorities having sufficient control and capacity to make genuinely place-based and people-focused decisions (9,14). This includes enabling them to co-produce housing improvement strategies with the communities they serve, as well as a commitment to understanding and addressing the structural reasons for existing energy inequities (10). Taken together, the Warm Homes Plan creates opportunities for more coordinated, place-based delivery, while also requiring careful programme design to account for workforce capacity, skills availability, and the resilience of construction supply chains. In addition, meaningful public involvement and trust-building, alongside tailored energy advice, and home improvement design specification, will be essential to encourage uptake and ensure that measures are appropriate for different household circumstances and housing types.
The success of the Warm Homes Plan will also depend on learning from the limitations of recent schemes such as ECO4. In particular, misaligned incentives within privatised delivery models and weak consumer protections have undermined trust and outcomes in the past (15). Addressing these challenges will be essential if delivery is to achieve high-quality, equitable, and lasting improvements. Crucially, a place-based approach must also go beyond simply rebranding national policy as ‘local’. It needs to reflect how housing, income, and daily life vary across places, and how past decisions about infrastructure and investment shape what can be achieved today (13).
Looking ahead, one further priority we would encourage the government to address is the cost of electricity (16). Lower electricity prices would significantly strengthen the impact of the Warm Homes Plan by making low-carbon heating options, such as heat pumps, more financially attractive for households that are currently waiting for costs to fall. Together, sustained investment in energy efficiency and fairer energy pricing can help ensure that everyone can live in a good-quality, comfortable home that is affordable to heat and cool as necessary.
We look forward to seeing more details on the delivery of the Warm Homes Plan and to providing insights from our on-going research into place-based retrofit and regeneration models.
