Retrofitting High Peak homes would 'create thousands of jobs'

Thousands of jobs would be created in the High Peak parliamentary constituency by retrofitting homes with good insulation and heat pumps, a new report claims.

The Institute for Public Policy Research say the £7 billion-per-year scheme is a 'no-brainer' to create jobs, boost growth, reduce energy bills, level-up and meet net-zero targets nationwide.

The 28-year plan to upgrade almost all of England's 24 million homes with energy efficient measures and low-carbon technologies would create 1.2 million direct jobs – including 2,543 in High Peak.

This is equivalent to 8.6% of the area's total job market – nationally, the uplift would be 4.9%. IPPR's proposed retrofitting programme would provide 116,806 jobs across the East Midlands – around 4.9% of the region's current jobs.

It claims the move is “uniquely placed” to become “the cornerstone of the Government’s levelling-up strategy in England”, as those communities with the highest demand for installers tend to be current or former industrial centres and coastal communities outside London and the South East.

And the UK as a whole is currently installing less than a tenth of the measures needed in its “cold, damp and leaky” housing stock to meet its net zero target, it said, with the pace of deployment required only increasing in the face of the “dire” energy price crisis.

The think tank said investing in its proposals for a multibillion pound retrofitting programme could sustain more than 1.2 million direct jobs and 1.5 million indirect jobs by 2050.