This session brings two powerful northern case studies together to make an argument that often gets lost in London-centric retrofit conferences: that the most transformative retrofit work in the country is happening in post-industrial communities in Teesside and Yorkshire, not in City skyscrapers.

Church Lane North in Grangetown, Redcar and Cleveland — an estate of 291 homes founded in the iron and steel industry, bearing the scars of industrial collapse — has been the subject of a £16m regeneration programme delivered by Beyond Housing and principal contractor Equans. The programme, developed in genuine consultation with residents from 2018, tackled the estate's obsolete 'Radburn' layout: rear gardens facing the street, fronts facing each other over communal space, poor energy performance and a profound sense of neglect. The solution involved selective demolition of 15 empty homes to create new highways and reconfigure the estate layout; new roofs and external wall insulation to 137 homes to improve thermal performance and EPC ratings; 33 new affordable homes in a range of tenures blended in using matching render and colour palettes; extended private rear gardens, new secure fencing and on-plot parking. A community hub was opened in August 2021. The project is a powerful example of how regeneration can transform a community — and how retrofit and place-making can and should be delivered as a single, integrated proposition.

Alongside Church Lane North, Broadacres Housing Association — managing more than 15,000 homes across North and West Yorkshire and operating with net zero by 2050 as a strategic target — has been running one of the most instructive rural retrofit programmes in the country. Working with contractor PH Jones and, more recently, RPS Group on a £6.2m Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund contract, Broadacres has been upgrading 400 homes across North Yorkshire towns including Easingwold, Bedale, Northallerton and Ripon, as well as remote rural communities around Whitby, Helmsley and the Dales. Solar panels, air source heat pumps, loft insulation and smart air bricks are being installed to bring properties from EPC D to B. Broadacres fits ASHPs as standard in all new homes and has now installed them in over 735 existing properties — more than 10% of its stock. Crucially, the association has deployed in-house operatives alongside contractors to embed retrofit knowledge into the organisation itself, creating a 10-point action plan to make retrofit business-as-usual. This is what building long-term capacity actually looks like.

Church Lane North: redesigning an entire estate layout — demolition, new build, EWI and community engagement as a single integrated programme
The Radburn estate problem: why the physical layout of post-war social housing is as much a challenge as its energy performance
Broadacres' rural retrofit challenge: reaching off-grid communities in North Yorkshire with ASHPs, solar PV and insulation at scale
Building internal capacity: how Broadacres trained in-house operatives to deliver and sustain retrofit as business-as-usual
What both projects prove: that community-first, resident-led retrofit in the North is delivering better outcomes than top-down programmes

Programme