“Detrimental to my sense of home”: Lessons from a social housing retrofit

 

A short film released by Lochend residents and members of Living Rent, Scotland’s community union, reveals a "systemic failure" in a major social housing retrofit programme in Edinburgh, which has led to thousands of pounds in retrofit costs and property damage for private owners in a low-income community. 

 

The film summarises three years of campaigning work related to the Lochend residential blocks. The hope is that, as retrofit ramps up in Scotland and the rest of the UK, lessons are learned from Lochend:

 

"Our mission is to ensure commissioners, decision-makers and funders learn lessons from what happened to us, so that others do not have to go through this mess. This has been a systemic failure – not just a problem with cowboy contractors, bad communications or poor management," writes Mel Esquerre, Research Fellow – Retrofit, Churchill Fellowship.

 

"Please share this video – it needs to reach the people who shape retrofit programmes everywhere. What happened here can happen anywhere." 

 

The retrofit started as part of the Mixed Tenure Improvement Service in 2018, a programme to upgrade the buildings to meet statutory EESSH2 energy efficiency standards, a standard that applies only to social housing.

 

Under the scheme, private owners living among social tenants in the Lochend housing blocks are expected to fund their share of the works, even though their flats are not required to meet the standard. This is where the problem started: Many residents do not have the financial security to pay their share of a retrofit programme undertaken by Edinburgh Council. 

 

Where retrofit work went ahead, owners became liable for the fees regardless of their willingness or ability to pay. The estimated cost per flat is £20,000 or more – the solution proposed by the Council to owners is to sell their home if they cannot pay the bill.

 

After members of Living Rent Lochend met with the Scottish Just Transition Commission, an independent advisory body, it was agreed that members should compile a report to capture missed opportunities and suggest a way forward for the retrofit programme.

 

The report concludes: "If just transition principles had been embedded in the MTIS programme from the start, much of the distress and anger it continues to generate could have been avoided. As it stands, the scheme feels experimental, and no community should be left feeling they have been used in that way. 

 

"Meaningful collaboration on the scheme’s basic design with the people affected would have led to a more dignified experience for residents and far greater trust that Edinburgh Council aims to improve the wellbeing of our community as a whole, rather than simply meet its statutory targets.

 

"In an area classed as highly deprived, charges to property owners rising significantly above available grant support would quickly tip the scheme into being one that extracts community wealth rather than nourishes it."