Ever since the Green Homes Grant Scheme was announced mid 2020 customers have been asking whether we will be carrying out work under this scheme. With so many home owners getting excited at the prospect of receiving between £5000 and £10000, we have seen many opt to postpone works or cancel existing orders all together. The prospect of obtaining ‘free cash’ to put towards their home improvements sounding like too good an opportunity to miss out on!
The scheme, run by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, was launched at the end of September last year with homeowners believing they would be able to apply for vouchers for energy efficient home improvements of between £5000 and £10000. Businesses were also hoping this scheme would boost jobs throughout the UK as the Government strives to meet it’s commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
So in the four months the scheme has been running where are we with this scheme? It would seem that things are not running at all smoothly where this scheme is concerned.
It has been reported that thousands of home owners have applied for the Green Homes Grant Scheme. It has also been reported that relatively few have actually been awarded a voucher. There seems to be an administration backlog which has resulted in members of the public waiting months to see if they will be awarded vouchers. This has resulted in many just giving up on their applications all together.
From the offset details of who would be eligible to carry out works under this scheme were pretty sketchy. However it soon became apparent that to be able to offer this scheme to clients would be another long and costly drawn out process for contractors.
With this in mind, it was obvious fairly early on that there would not be enough contractors accredited to satisfy the demand of such an ambitious scheme.
Businesses have spent time any money preparing to expand their businesses to meet the expected demand of the scheme. Many of those businesses are now reporting that they have not been paid for the work they have carried out and are subsequently having to lay off staff or face closure.
There was much hype during 2020 of how the Green Homes Grant Scheme would provide more jobs for the UK economy. However the administration of this scheme is reportedly being carried out not in the UK, but in the US! If this is true, this is obviously not good for the UK economy. They may have won the tender to carry out this scheme but surely, here in the UK, we have plenty of consultancy businesses which could easily run this scheme without the need to send the contract abroad? What happened to UK jobs for UK businesses?
Let’s face it, the promise of such large amounts of money being made available to every homeowner in the country sounded just too good to be true. And as the old saying goes – if it seems too good to be true then it generally is!
Past history of other schemes such as the Feed in Tariff and the Green Deal shows this scheme was doomed to failure without a robust infrastructure behind it. Previous schemes have seen the down fall of many a good business due to bad execution and administration.
The same seems to be true of the Green Homes Grant. It would seem many businesses have invested time and money in the belief that this scheme will boost jobs within the construction industry. Now many seem to be in a far worse position financially and had to result to cutting jobs to survive.
Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband is reported to have had plenty to say with regards the current state of the scheme: “This scheme has descended into an absolute fiasco. The Government needs to urgently sort out this mess and crucially make sure small businesses are paid what they are owed.
“Far from creating green jobs, the Government’s approach means workers in the renewable energy industry are actually being let go – worsening the economic crisis.”
For those of you still asking us the question after reading the above, we honestly would not put ourselves or our customers through the stress of trying to apply for this scheme as it stands right now.
It’s a real shame as the concept is good but the execution as has been poor leading to a lack of consumer confidence in the renewable market once again.
We will of course keep you informed of any improvements in the application process and should the likelihood of receiving monies improve, we will let you know.
Several of our customers postponed work last summer in a hope of obtaining a grant towards the cost. We are yet to hear of any of them actually being successful in receiving their vouchers.
We are urging customers not to put off home improvements in the hope they may be awarded funds from any scheme to help pay for it. Especially if the work really needs doing. You can contactContact us today for a no obligation quotation.
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