Encouraging Residents To Switch To Low Carbon Heating

Manchester City Council has received Social Housing Decarbonisation Funding (SHDF) to reduce the carbon footprint of their properties, largely across the north of the city. This is a £50m investment to improve around 1,600 properties between 2023 and 2025.

The council has commissioned us to develop a strategy which is acting as a blueprint for how to engage stakeholders, staff and residents involved in all the council’s retrofit activity – with the SHDF programme being the test-case.

The strategy covers the different levels of involvement each stakeholder should have – from coordinating to informing, as well as the stages of engagement through the life-cycle of a retrofit programme. We have also produced several template documents that form a practical toolkit to accompany the strategy.

One of the aspects of this project that we are enjoying the most, is working alongside the council as they deliver the SHDF programme. We have also recruited a Community Engagement Officer who is working collaboratively with the council’s staff and wider partners to implement the strategy by engaging stakeholders, partners and residents in the SHDF project areas.

This close partnership means we can tailor and finesse the comms and engagement strategy, so it works for MCC’s future retrofit programmes. We included indicators to measure success, and we will also be working with the council to evaluate the impact of the comms and engagement activities, as the capital works are completed.