The Government’s ailing Green Home Grants scheme has been terminated by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This is both good and bad news for listed property owners. The scheme had certainly badly underdelivered for historic homes, but the grants being discontinued mean that there will be no opportunity to reform them either.

This is a difficult change to interpret for the Club. We did feel that it would be easier to get listed properties properly covered by an existing scheme than it would be to create a new one. However, the collapse of the scheme also demonstrates that its flaws were severe, and makes it very unlikely that a similar exclusionary approach will be taken in future.

The Government has committed the full budget that GHG had initially planned to have for energy improvements, but moving forward local councils will administer all payments. This change can be seen as a cause for optimism, because local schemes are less likely to keep listed buildings out, but owners will all have to contact their own local authority to see what funding might be available for them.