| Low Carbon Homes, the online regional retrofit conference series returns next week event, hosted by Cosy Homes Oxfordshire.Low Carbon Homes Oxfordshire, (Tuesday 9th – Thursday 10th March), is staged over three mornings, and includes both speaker sessions and interactive work groups to generate ideas to overcome the supply chain barrier. Cosy Homes Oxfordshire, as a pilot home retrofit service, has operated for almost two years. During that time, the biggest barrier to scaling up retrofit has always been finding enough trusted and high-quality contractors to deliver home retrofit projects in Oxfordshire – be that installers, manufacturers, electricians, or anyone else in the supply chain. The recent national retrofit strategy consultation document ‘Greening Our Existing Homes’ published by the Construction Leadership Council indicates that around 500,000 new professionals and tradespeople are needed to tackle this challenge. Tabitha Whiting of Cosy Homes Oxfordshire said: “Since the launch of our whole house retrofit service two years ago we haven’t struggled to find homeowners who are keen to retrofit their home. Instead, our main barrier has been finding trusted local building contractors to deliver the work. It’s clear that we need to build up the supply chain for retrofit in Oxfordshire to meet homeowner demand and climate targets. “We need training opportunities to bring new people into the building sector, from apprenticeships to train up the young, to re-skilling programmes to enable those who are unemployed to find work in the retrofit sector (supporting the green recovery from Covid-19 at the same time). There’s also room for innovation and entrepreneurship, bringing new ideas to the plate. That’s why we’ve chosen to host this event in collaboration with Low Carbon Homes, and we’re excited to see the conversations and ideas that come from it.” |
