Launch of Surrey's Retrofit Plan
On 27th January, stakeholders from across Surrey who work in energy, buildings, and resilience came together for the launch of Surrey’s Retrofit Strategic Action Plan.
The plan will work alongside existing strategies and energy grants in Surrey to support residents, including Surrey Adapt, and the Warm Homes Local Grant – under which Surrey received £14m of Government funding to help residents living in the least efficient homes and least capable of upgrading the home – to apply for up to £30,000 of funding for home upgrades. You can check if you’re eligible by filling out a short form here.
READ THE SURREY RETROFIT PLAN HERE
The launch of the plan formed part of a ‘Built Environment’ workshop, which saw stakeholders from various sectors come together to discuss the challenges that lie ahead for Surrey and its infrastructure, and how we can adapt to these challenges.
The built environment includes our homes, commercial premises, and infrastructure like bridges and roads. As well as the obvious architecture and planning components, built environment needs to consider things like public health, mental health and emissions from our buildings and properties. This can be categorised into two main components; the built environment part usually deals with new build, planning, and large scale works to our towns, whilst ‘retrofit’ is the process of upgrading existing individual buildings.
Obviously the ideal time to implement building and planning strategies that work for our residents and businesses to ensure buildings are safe, accessible, and comfortable is during the design and build process, and planning reform is needed to be able to deliver this. But we can’t ignore existing buildings, and Surrey is an example of why, with 2/3 of our homes having energy performance ratings of D or below. (ie 300,000 of our 485,000 homes perform poorly against energy efficiency standards.
Home energy upgrades make a huge difference to our residents, helping to tackle cost of living crisis and health impacts, and a typical home energy upgrade plan can:
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Reduce residents’ bills
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Reduce risk of damp and mould
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In turn improving health of residents and lowering pressure on local health services
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Reduce residential emissions, which are Surrey’s 2nd largest source
Local Area Retrofit Accelerator
Surrey was one of 4 areas selected nationally as part of MCS Foundation’s Local Area Retrofit Accelerator pilot (LARA). LARA brought around 180 individuals together, from 40-50 companies working on home energy upgrades and energy grants across Surrey.
Surrey’s Retrofit Plan is the result of these efforts, and SCC has launched the plan to deliver on the benefits listed above, saving money for residents, keeping homes modern and comfortable, and improving resident health.
The next step is to begin delivery of the plan, and if you’re involved in home energy improvements as an installer, community group offering energy advice, social housing landlord, or skills provider, it’s not too late to get involved.
You can read the full Surrey Retrofit Plan and Appendix on the Surrey County Council webpages.
Implementation of the plan begins in Spring 2026. If you’d like to be involved contact energy@surreycc.gov.uk.
Watch the videos below to see a case study from a Surrey resident who has upgraded his home’s energy efficiency using the energy grant Boiler Upgrade Scheme, and a short video from stakeholders who attended the Built Environment workshop.
