The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Wave 2.1 competition officially opened to bids on Thursday 30 September 2022. The competition will remain open for 7 weeks, closing on 18 November 2022.
Bids will then be subject to assessments until the end of November. Those organisations and consortia that submit successful bids will be notified in February / March 2023. The competition’s full proposed timeline and application documentation can be viewed on the Gov.UK website.
In practice, the timeline means that organisations that still wish to apply for a share of this £800 million programme have only a narrow window of opportunity to submit their bids. Over the last few months, in readiness for this stage, SBS has been busy helping existing and potential clients to prepare detailed, evidence-backed submissions, to deliver realistic and value-for-money projects.
You can read more about the bid-scoring process and criteria here. (The article includes a link to our free downloadable Guide To Maximising Scores & Project Impacts.)
Once the successful bidders have been notified, it will be important for them to have well-prepared mobilisation plans that identify all the key roles and all the main stakeholder partners involved. The demands of the new PAS standards are such that very early communication between all key participants is essential. Good communication and a shared understanding of intended outcomes helps to ensure greater cost-certainty, more efficient delivery and maximal benefits for both the client and its residents.
However, it’s all too easy for inexperienced project teams to underestimate costs and timescales, especially when managing multiple measures or delivering over a ‘spread’ of property archetypes and different neighbourhoods. Consequently, it’s important to build capable and experienced teams and to involve them in the planning stages as early as possible.
For more details about preparing decarbonation retrofit bids under SHDF Wave 2, please contact our team on 01695 553 920, or email enquiries@sustainablebuildinguk.com.
