Great British Insulation Scheme: Lincolnshire, Hull and Salford are installation hot spots but households in London and the South are left out in the cold

• Data obtained by climate solutions charity, One Home, reveals that uptake of the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) is highest by households in Lincolnshire’s West Lindsey, Kingston-upon-Hull and Salford – yet is still low overall.
• The £1bn Government scheme has had no uptake in parts of inner London including Camden and Islington.
• A clear regional divide has emerged in appetite for the scheme with 70% of the 20 areas with the highest uptake being in the North and Midlands and 95% of the 20 areas with the lowest being in the South.
• The GBIS is more than half way through its three-year term, but has only reached 10% of the 300,000 households it aims to help.
• One Home CEO Angela Terry says the country is in an ‘insulation crisis’ and is calling on consumers to urgently prioritise insulating their home by checking eligibility for GBIS.
• Terry also wants the Government to commit to extending the scheme past 2026 and insists that consumer confidence in the scheme is paramount.

04 December 2024 Data obtained by climate solutions charity, One Home, reveals that uptake of the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) varies drastically across England with more households in Lincolnshire’s West Lindsey using the initiative than anywhere else in the country.

664 households per 100,000 in the East Midlands local authority have been upgraded – that is having one or more types of insulation or ‘measures’ installed – since the scheme’s launch in March 2023, followed by 507 per 100,000 in Kingston-upon-Hull and 498 per 100,000 in Salford.

Conversely, zero homes per 100,000 have used the scheme in Camden, the City of London, Islington and Kensington and Chelsea. In Inner London as a whole, just 24 households per 100,000 have been upgraded by having insulation installed via the GBIS initiative.

While a total of 26,504 homes have been upgraded across England since GBIS launched in March 2023 – equivalent to 110 households per 100,000 – a stark regional divide has emerged in appetite for the scheme.

Fourteen (70%) of the top 20 areas with the highest uptake are in the North and Midlands – including Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees, Leicester and Birmingham – whilst 95% of the 20 areas with the lowest uptake are in the South – including Cambridge, St Albans, Mid Devon and Winchester.

The £1 billion Great British Insulation Scheme was launched by the Conservative Government in March 2023 and is aimed at supporting 300,000 homes with an energy performance certificate rating of D to G and those within council tax bands A to D in England (and A to E in Scotland and Wales).

But more than half way into the three-year scheme just 30,182 households across Great Britain have been upgraded, meaning only 10% of the 300,000 homes that GBIS aimed to support have so far benefited.

Households that qualify for GBIS can benefit from new roof, loft or cavity wall insulation, saving around £300 to £400 a year on their energy bills. Once a homeowner’s application has been assessed and approved, work carried out through the scheme must meet the PAS 2035 technical standard, which is higher than that of normal building regulations.

Earlier this month (14 November) the Labour Government launched a mid-scheme consultation* examining suggested changes which include removing or softening the obligation to have a specific PAS 2035/2030 qualification for loft insulation installers – instead they will require an enhanced license from TrustMark.

One Home CEO and environmental scientist, Angela Terry, said: “At a time where much of the country has been battered by storms and snow, and as householders face energy prices rising yet again in January, the issue of adequate home insulation has never been more pressing.

Energy bills are still 65% higher than the winter of 2020/21. This country has some of the least energy efficient homes in Europe and six million households living in fuel poverty, and while the new Government has promised a Warm Homes Plan, there is currently a lack of detail on what this involves, what funding has been secured or when it will be rolled out. We have to face facts that the UK is in the grip of an insulation crisis and we urgently need to upgrade our housing stock.

The Great British Insulation Scheme should be a great tool to address this yet the low levels of uptake are heart breaking when millions are struggling to heat their homes. It’s essential that the Government does more to promote its benefits and that consumers are empowered with the knowledge they need to cut their bills.

Whilst I am pleased to see that the Government is looking at ways to improve the scheme and applaud any measures that widen its eligibility criteria, it is imperative that softening the PSA 2035/2030 standard does not lead to lower quality work. Consumer confidence in insulation schemes is essential if they are to succeed.

I’m also calling on the Government to extend the scheme past its current deadline of 31 March 2026 – it will be almost impossible to achieve the adoption rates needed to have real impact, in the next 18 months alone.

This is the third winter that consumers have been living with excessively high energy bills – I implore homeowners to act NOW. If they don’t take action to insulate their property and protect themselves against expensive heating costs, future winters will continue to be cold, bleak and costly.”

For more information on the environmental education charity One Home, please visit its website.

-ENDS-

*For details please see https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6734835937aabe56c4161036/eco4-and-gbis-mid-scheme-consultation.pdf

**Figures from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s monthly GBIS summary which came out on Thursday 21 November and are updated to September 2024. Figures are broken down regionally by unitary and local authorities across England.

Notes to editors

For more information please contact:

Sam Carlisle at sam.carlisle [at] causecommunications.co.uk or Jenna Sloan at jenna.sloan [at] causecommunications.co.uk

About Angela Terry, Chief Executive, One Home

One Home was founded by Angela Terry MSc MEI, an environmental scientist with over 20 years’ experience in the renewables industry. Angela set up One Home to raise awareness of positive climate solutions and help UK households to adapt to a low cost, low carbon lifestyle. Angela was voted Net Zero Energy Pioneer at the 2024 Green Energy Awards and was a pioneer of community energy in the UK as Development Director for Energy4All. She was also Head of Wood Fuel for the Forestry Commission, Policy Manager for RES, and a carbon scientist in New Zealand.

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