Just 41% of homes in England meet the recommended Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of ‘C’ or above, according to research from Open Property Group.
This latest figure is only a 1% increase from the previous year.
In 2022, only 40% of homes in England met the standard, despite the UK government aiming to reduce the country’s carbon footprint by significantly improving the energy efficiency of all homes.
The EPC scale is ranked from A-G and is used to measure the efficiency of a property based on the level of its emissions, its potential heat or energy loss and its likely fuel costs.
The government has proposed a bill that would require all rental properties to meet a compulsory energy performance certificate rating of band C on new tenancies by December 2025.
Currently, 63% of properties in the City of London meet the EPC rating of ‘C’ or above – the same percentage as 12 months ago. This is closely followed by Salford, which has 59% of properties meeting the recommended energy rating – a 1% increase on the previous year.
For the second year running, Birmingham is ranked last, where only 33% of homes meet the target energy rating. Bath and Brighton both fell below the national average, with just 38% of their homes scoring an EPC rating of ‘C’ or above.
In terms of regions across England, London saw 46% of its properties meeting the EPC band of ‘C’ or above.
Yorkshire and The Humber was the lowest scoring region on the list, with only 36% of its properties meeting the recommended EPC standards of ‘C’.
Jason Harris-Cohen, Open Property Group managing director, commented: “There has been a lot of noise around ‘greening up’ the UK’s property stock, and despite multiple campaigns and press coverage, homeowners are woefully behind the government’s target. “
Some progress will have been made with landlords selling up due to this and other proposed legislation. Of course owner occupiers have not been FORCED into improving the insulation of their own homes. Furthermore our over loud shouty bully boy government have not made any significant incentives/tax relief to help with improving housing stock insulation. No carrot just the great big government stick.
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Frankly this is a story that will run as a failure of home improvement in the rental market and will continue (as is today) to reduce the housing stock in PRS. Note, not SHS as many will have seen the external insulation and solar panels etc on SHS sector properties paid for by the UK tax payer that is not afforded to PRS.
The UK housing stock ha s a vast swathe of old properties, many 100 years or more old that can never achieve the energy efficiency to reach a Band C that is either cost viable to a landlord or can even be implemented.
Seeing as the UK housing stock is majority private ownership/occupied 28 million, try imposing the Band C on them, which would have a better impact on carbon quota and see where that gets you (politicians) with the general public. You wouldn’t dare.
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I think the way in which the epc is calculated will need to be changed first. At the moment it is very gas central heating centric. Given that there is talk that all connections to mains gas will be stopped soon, the algorithm will need to stop penalising electric heated homes.
I am not going to worry about this at the moment as I believe the methodology will be changed to stop this being the disaster that it is currently looking like!
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Or put another way “rig the data methology” which makes a mockery of todays EPC ratings.
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