Safe and warm homes
Providing homes that are safe and warm remains at the heart of our responsibilities at Settle. Creating and maintaining homes that residents are proud of, and which are safe, comfortable and affordable, is our priority.
Providing warm and sustainable homes also helps us on our journey to net zero, creating energy-efficient communities and real benefits for residents.
We’re clear that we want to provide homes and places residents are proud of and will be working to the targets in our 2030 plan to ensure we continue meeting or exceeding our requirements, including compliance with all safety checks and the Decent Homes Standard.
Investment in homes
We’ll continue investing in residents’ homes, with the things we know are important to them, like new kitchens, bathrooms, windows and roofs. Creating more modern, comfortable and warmer homes also means we’ll be continuing to improve their energy efficiency.
Innovative technology
Staying open to new technologies and sustainability measures, such as modern heating systems, will help ensure we continue to provide the best homes we can; improving the thermal comfort of properties, reducing our environmental impact and providing homes that are more comfortable and affordable to run.
Greener Herts
At Settle, we know the value of collaboration. We’re proud of our sustainability partnership, ‘Greener Herts’, as an example of this. With Hertfordshire-based housing associations B3Living and Watford Community Housing, along with Dacorum Borough Council, we are working in partnership to make Hertfordshire’s homes more sustainable. Between us we own and manage around 20,000 homes in Hertfordshire and its neighbouring counties, and together we’re committed to building a more sustainable future for our communities.
Find out more about Greener Herts by checking out our dedicated website here!
The partnership gives us the ability to share resources and tasks, and together we’re making a real difference by adopting more sustainable ways of working and investing in energy-efficient homes.
In March 2023, as a partnership we were delighted to be awarded funding through the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, enabling works to hundreds of homes to bring them up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C.
Find out more about Greener Herts by checking out our dedicated website here!
The partnership gives us the ability to share resources and tasks, and together we’re making a real difference by adopting more sustainable ways of working and investing in energy-efficient homes.
In March 2023, as a partnership we were delighted to be awarded funding through the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, enabling works to hundreds of homes to bring them up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C.
“The minute the wall insulation went on, we noticed the difference. We don’t put the heating on hardly at all now. The heating is on less and the house stays warm.”
Feedback from a Settle resident after improvement works to their home. This included loft insulation, new air vents to remove moisture from the kitchen and bathroom and different heating controls, along with the external wall insulation.
Warmer Homes
Our work with Greener Herts is just one of the ways we are working to meet the Government’s requirement for all homes to reach EPC C or above by 2030. The EPC of a home advises how energy efficient a building is, so for Settle, it’s important we meet this target whilst also ensuring residents can benefit from warmer, more energy-efficient homes.
We’ll be continuing to look out for and leverage opportunities for grant funding so that all Settle homes, as well as our workplaces, are at EPC C or above by 2030.
Going for gold
We are pleased that our work to embed sustainability across Settle has been recognised through our assessments by SHIFT, the sustainability standard for the housing sector. We have been awarded silver in our recent assessments, with recommendations providing a clear roadmap to achieving our target of gold by 2027.
The SHIFT assessment monitors how we are delivering against challenging environmental targets, such as carbon emissions, water use and landfill waste and helps us improve our performance moving forward. Find out more about the SHIFT accreditation process here.
