Full council: 26 April 2021

Motion: That with a view to maximising the amount of drawdown from the National Home Retrofit Scheme, the council outline the amount of funding it has secured for both social housing retrofitting and required staffing, and outline how many houses and in which estates this funding will be applied to across the county this year and over the next 5 years.

Report: Kildare County Council is receiving funding in 2021 under both the Midlands Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Programme (MEERP) and the Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Programme (EERP) to retrofit our social housing stock.

The council received €3.3m in funding under MEERP and have identified between 80- 100 housing units across four developments to be retrofitted in four phases commencing in May:
Phase 1 Beechgrove, Rathangan

Phase 2 Ashbrook, Derrinturn
Phase 3 Bishopsland (Farrincooley and Dunmurrary Rise), Kildare Phase 4 St Evin’s Park, Monasterevin

In addition, the council has received €1,488,786 in funding for 2021 under EERP and have compiled a work programme for 55 units across three developments which are separate to the developments to be retrofitted under MEERP [Loughnamona, Leixlip; Clonmullion, Athy; Cill Corbain, Naas].

Kildare County Council did not seek funding under the National Home Retrofit Scheme. There was limited interest in this scheme from the local authority sector, with ultimately no local authorities progressing applications mainly arising from by the roll out of the EERP by the DHLGH.

A number of staff have been assigned to both the MEERP and EERP on a part-time basis and consideration is being given to what additional resources may be required to deliver both programmes.

There is no indication at this time of the likely funding over the next 5 years.

Issued by: Mr D Creighton, Senior Architect.