The cabinet committee held a meeting on Tuesday to consider the recommendations made by its advisors, Grant Thornton, on how to boost the retrofit market across the region, which include eight local authorities, including Glasgow City Council.
Among the key recommendations is for the region to develop a pipeline of work to stimulate market demand, primarily through focusing on social and local authority housing stock. But also covering owner occupiers and private landlords.
“As always, investors and the supply chain need clear signals that there are stable, inflation-linked returns to their investments,” Mark Williams, public services advisory contractor at Grant Thornton, told Partnerships Bulletin before presenting to the cabinet meeting.
As part of Glasgow City Region’s next steps, the organisation is planning to establish a series of workstreams, which will include one looking at how to finance the delivery of retrofit across the city.
Glasgow is seeking to take the lead on cutting carbon emissions as it prepares to host the COP 26 climate conference later this year. Last week, it unveiled a £30bn ‘Greenprint for Investment’, which includes its plans to retrofit existing buildings to cut carbon emissions.
“Across the region there is already a level of activity, with projects delivering for a subset of properties. However, the region, like other authorities, needs to be doing 10 times what they are currently doing if they are to get to Net Zero,” Williams added.