By Ian McConnell
Wheatley, which describes itself as Scotland’s biggest housing group, is investing £100 million in sustainability initiatives, in line with its long-term aims of becoming carbon neutral and eliminating fuel poverty.
The planned £100m investment over the next five years unveiled by Wheatley Group, which provides homes and services to more than 210,000 people in 19 local authority areas across Scotland, will include £36m of expenditure on new double and triple-glazed windows to make homes more energy-efficient.
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It will also include £10m of spending on external wall insulation to help improve the thermal efficiency of homes and cut fuel bills.
Wheatley Group noted the investment would also include £10m of spending on “connected response”, a retrofit technology to optimise storage heating.
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The housing group described this as “an innovative solution to inefficient and expensive electric heating which has been shown to reduce energy use by up to 30 per cent and cut bills by up to £300 per year”.
Wheatley Group includes GHA, Scotland’s largest social landlord with nearly 43,000 affordable homes in Glasgow. It also takes in Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership, Dunedin Canmore in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife, Loretto Housing in the central belt, and West Lothian Housing Partnership.
The housing group is committing to being carbon neutral in its corporate estate by 2026, and to reduce carbon emissions from its homes by at least 4,000 tonnes per year.
Stephen Devine, Wheatley’s director of assets and sustainability, said: “We want to inspire our staff and the communities we serve to help us meet climate commitments and reduce carbon emissions. Many of our communities are already benefiting from our massive investment programme, including new energy-efficient heating systems in multi-storeys and solar panels.”
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