Warm Homes: Local Grant, delivered properly

What	Detail
Funding	£500 million nationally, across 73 projects covering some 270 local authorities
Delivery window	1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028
Cost caps	£16,600 per home for energy performance measures plus £16,600 for low carbon heating under the July 2026 guidance (widely advertised as “up to £30,000” under the original caps), averaged across the project, not per home
Eligible homes	EPC D–G, owner-occupied or privately rented; social housing is funded through separate programmes
Eligible residents	Three pathways: an IMD income decile 1–2 postcode (no income verification needed), receipt of specified means-tested benefits, or gross household income under £36,000
Admin allowance	Up to 15% of project spend on administration, explicitly including “searching for eligible homes, signing up households”

WHLG money arrives with strings that bind the authority, not the installer. Under the policy guidance, the local authority is responsible for verifying household eligibility through robust checks rather than self-declaration, for compliance with the current quality and installation standards, for managing the cost caps on average by project closure, and for controls that prevent duplicate funding across schemes. When an installation fails an audit three winters from now, the paper trail that matters is yours.

That is the lens for every delivery decision in the programme: can this partner evidence eligibility, quality and cost at the standard your auditors will apply?

Fuel poverty in England stood at 9.9% of households in 2024 (9.3% in the East of England), yet most WHLG projects find that eligible residents do not arrive by themselves. Eligibility is specific, EPC D–G plus a qualifying postcode, benefit or income, and expressions of interest are not a pipeline: homes must be eligibility-verified, surveyed and consented before a single measure is installed. Authorities that under-recruit hand money back at project closure; authorities that recruit loosely fail compliance checks.

The guidance anticipates exactly this: up to 15% of project spend may go on administration, including searching for eligible homes and signing up households. In Hertfordshire, where Pyramid Eco delivers, the scale is real: Broxbourne received £1,070,786; Watford and Three Rivers were awarded £3.75 million jointly; North Herts, East Herts and others are delivering too, most through the National Energy Foundation and its Better Housing Better Health service. The constraint on every one of those programmes is the same: a verified pipeline of installable homes. Our WHLG postcode checker qualifies residents by scheme area today, and we run doorstep verification behind it.

That record is why WHLG polices quality the way it does. Every installation must run through the PAS framework: a retrofit assessment of the whole dwelling, a PAS 2035 retrofit coordinator accountable for the design, PAS 2030-certified installers, and lodgement with TrustMark. For an authority, the practical question is not whether a contractor can hang insulation, it is whether their documentation survives an audit, and what happens on the homes where something is found. A partner who also does remediation professionally, putting right other installers’ failures, has seen where the bodies are buried, and builds so as not to add to them.

Use this as your due-diligence list, on us or on anyone:

1. PAS 2030 certification covering the specific measures in your programme, and working arrangements under PAS 2035 coordination.
2. TrustMark registration with a clean lodgement history.
3. Independent audit results, not assurances. Ask for the last external audit outcome and rate. Pyramid invites the IAA to inspect 100% of its high-risk installations, at its own cost: read how the programme works.
4. Remediation capability, what happens when a survey finds failed existing measures? A partner on the IAA remediation framework can price and fix, not just walk away.
5. A resident pipeline method, how they find, verify and sign up eligible households, and whether it maps to the 15% admin allowance compliantly.
6. A documentation pack per property, eligibility evidence, retrofit assessment, design, photos, handover, in the shape your compliance team needs.
7. Capacity evidence, current volumes, geography and mobilisation time.
8. Local track record, named schemes and referees.

Can you generate resident leads for us compliantly?
Yes, that work sits inside the 15% administration allowance, and every lead is handed over with the eligibility evidence attached, so your verification duty is met with checks rather than declarations.

We already have a managing agent. Where do you fit?
We subcontract to managing agents and scheme operators as readily as we contract directly.

What documentation do we receive per property?
Eligibility evidence, retrofit assessment, coordinated design, in-progress and completion photography, TrustMark lodgement and handover pack, shaped to survive your audit, not just ours.

What happens when a survey finds failed existing insulation?
We are on the IAA remediation framework: we can assess, price and remediate within the same programme rather than returning the home to your list marked “not installable”.

Which areas do you cover?
London, Hertfordshire and the South East, with current WHLG delivery concentrated in Hertfordshire.