A new £50 million fund to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies and create new green jobs across the West of England has been given the green light.
The West of England Combined Authority, led by Metro Mayor Dan Norris, has set up a Green Recovery Fund to help the region meet its ambitious net zero goals.
Insulating homes, new electric car charging points, and improving habitats to help buzzing bees and other pollinators, will now be on the cards.
The first scheme to get the go-ahead is to retrofit homes. £3.5 million pounds from the fund has been allocated to increase the pace and scale of making more local homes more energy efficient.
Metro Mayor Dan Norris said:
“This is a massive victory for the people of the West of England. We can now get on with retrofitting which is vital to tackle the climate emergency. Retrofitting is especially important for the West of England because we have so many beautiful houses from across the centuries. But as wonderful as they are, an Edwardian home in Bath, a Victorian one in Bristol or a white lias stone cottage in Somerset were not built with a climate emergency in mind! With gas, electricity and oil prices soaring too there is even more of an incentive to get insulating and to make our homes more energy efficient to cut those sky high energy bills. Under my leadership, the West of England will invest in skills backing the 23,000 new green jobs our region needs. We will provide clear advice for home owners and provide greater clarity to the industry. We will also be ready to bring national government funding to our amazing region.”
