Westminster is in flux

With Sir Keir Starmer stepping down, Andy Burnham has emerged as the frontrunner to lead Labour and, in all likelihood, the country.

Nothing is settled yet: the leadership contest is live and the detail will shift. But the direction of travel in his flagship speech was clear enough that anyone delivering retrofit at scale should be paying attention now, not after the keys to No.10 change hands.

Here is our read on what a Burnham government could mean for the retrofit and housing decarbonisation sector, and where the opportunities sit.

Devolution is the headline, and it changes who holds the budget

The centrepiece of Burnham's pitch is devolution. His “No.10 North” concept, based in Manchester, signals a genuine shift of power and money out of Whitehall and into combined authorities and mayors. For retrofit, that is not a footnote. It is the whole story. Today, much of our sector runs on centrally administered grant schemes with national rules and national timelines. A devolved model points somewhere different: combined authorities designing their own area-based programmes, shaped around local housing stock, local capacity, and local priorities. Local Area Energy Plans start to matter more than one-size-fits-all funding pots. For providers with genuine local presence and a delivery track record, this is a strong position to be in.

• Combined authorities designing their own area-based programmes
• Programmes shaped around local housing stock and capacity
• Local Area Energy Plans mattering more than national pots
• Power and budget moving from Whitehall to mayors
• Local presence and delivery track record rewarded

A council house building programme is a retrofit opportunity in disguise. Burnham has put the biggest council house building programme in a generation at the top of his priority list. The obvious reading is new build; the bigger opportunity is what happens to the existing stock alongside it. You cannot credibly run a mass council housing agenda without a serious plan for the millions of ageing, energy-inefficient homes already on the books. A government that is serious about council housing is, by necessity, serious about retrofit.

Net zero looks set to hold, but the framing changes

Despite pressure in some quarters to soften climate targets, the reported position is “no turning away from net zero.” What is likely to change is how it is sold and structured. Burnham's track record in Greater Manchester points to a version of net zero framed less around abstract carbon targets and more around outcomes people feel: warmer homes, lower bills, better health, and local jobs.

That reframing is helpful. It moves retrofit from a compliance cost to a public good, and it broadens the coalition that supports funding it.

Three practical threads worth watching:

• Health-aligned delivery: retrofit connected to fuel poverty and public health.
• Green skills and local jobs: rewarding providers who build local delivery capacity.
• Whole-home resilience: efficiency scaled for winter heating and summer overheating.

This pushes the sector toward genuine whole-home thinking rather than single measures.

The defence squeeze: net zero takes a hit, but the Warm Homes Plan holds

Any commitment to net zero now has to survive a much tighter fiscal picture. In late June the government published its Defence Investment Plan, a £15 billion increase in military spending, funded in part by cutting investment in road, housing, and energy schemes. Energy took the single biggest cut, with around £2 billion of savings sought from the net zero department. For our sector, though, the detail matters more than the headline. Ministers have said the Warm Homes Plan will not be affected by the defence savings.

• £15 billion of public investment behind the Warm Homes Plan is protected
• Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund underpins social housing retrofit
• Warm Homes: Local Grant remains part of the core funding
• Savings appear to land on heat pump and wider grant schemes instead
• Roughly £5 billion in the defence plan remains unfunded

That is genuinely reassuring for the work most of our clients are planning, but protected today is not the same as protected indefinitely. Whoever ends up in No.10 inherits a defence-first spending environment in which every future net zero pound competes harder than before. The practical takeaway: the programmes underpinning social housing retrofit look insulated for now, and planning around ring-fenced funding is the sensible posture for the next couple of years.

What this means for local authorities and housing associations

If devolution lands the way it is being described, the commissioning landscape will look different within a couple of years.

A caveat worth stating plainly: this is a prospective analysis of a fast-moving situation. Leadership contests turn, and policy detail firms up slowly. We will keep tracking it and share what matters as it becomes real.

A few things follow:

• Regional relationships will carry more weight
• Quality and compliance expectations are unlikely to soften
• PAS 2035, TrustMark and robust assessment stay central
• Programme planning gets more strategic and forward-looking
• Now is the time to shape pipelines, not chase them

What we are confident about is the direction. Power is moving closer to the regions, the case for warm homes is only getting stronger, and the providers who are ready to deliver locally, to standard, and at scale will be the ones the next government needs.

Who we are

Greenstorm is a retrofit group that puts compliance at the centre of everything we deliver, from assessment through to installation, right across the UK. Local authorities, housing associations, and commercial clients rely on us for accredited delivery (PAS 2030 and 2035, TrustMark, MCS, ConstructionLine Gold), national coverage, and a genuine commitment to quality and safety on every project.