SPONSORED FEATURE Towards a greener Hertfordshire - a burning platform for change

By Lucy Gravatt, Director of Partnerships & Communications, Hertfordshire LEP

Rising global temperatures have created an urgent and compelling impetus for change both at home and across the world. On Monday 3 July 2023, the Earth’s average temperature reached a new high, topping 17 degrees Celsius since records began. With southern Europe baking in 45 degrees Celsius heatwaves, triggering wildfires and mass evacuations, low pressure systems have brought heavy rainfall and risks of flooding to the UK.

Public and private sector leaders across the county are working together to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with Hertfordshire Growth Board identifying climate change as one of its key missions. Engaging with the local business community is a priority, and vital to delivering long term sustainable growth, supporting the green economy and driving up access to skilled talent to meet environmental challenges.

With several strategic partnerships in place, the county is well placed to deliver on its agenda for high quality place-making and sustainable design and build. Already a pioneer in the built environment, and with new garden town developments coming forward in Harlow Gilston and Hemel Garden Communities, Hertfordshire is committed to accelerating its housing delivery to meet pent-up demand for good quality, affordable housing but not at the price of the planet.

Local authorities and the affordable housing sector have formed the Hertfordshire OSM (Offsite Manufacture) consortium and a guide has been produced to speed design, planning, manufacture and pre-assembly of construction. Building Futures, a partnership of nine Hertfordshire local authorities, led by Hertfordshire County Council, aims to promote, facilitate and recognise high quality sustainable development across the county. Its services include access to expert and impartial advice via its Hertfordshire design review panel. The Building Futures conference will take place later this autumn, bringing together planners and developers to support high quality place-making and environmental principles.

Another key strategic alliance is the Hertfordshire Climate Change and Sustainability Partnership (HCCSP), which consists of all 10 district and borough councils, the county council and

Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). It is identifying joint work programmes on environmental, climate change and wider sustainability issues including water, biodiversity, transport and carbon reduction. One of the ways local planning authorities can help to make sure that future development can positively impact the environment is through biodiversity net gain (BNG). Leaving habitats for wildlife in a better state than before development will become a legal requirement for most planning applications in England from November.

Hertfordshire County Council has responded positively to this challenge by developing one of the UK’s first site-matching services. This connects developers looking for suitable sites with local landowners offering land for BNG or ready grown BNG units. The County Council has also set a target to enhance nature across its own land and water by 20% by 2030. It is also the lead authority for the Local Nature Recovery Strategy. A Hertfordshire Nature Recovery Partnership of public, private and voluntary sectors is being set up to create and take forward an agreed set of local priorities to help green the environment by identifying areas for improving habitats, and using natural solutions to mitigate flooding and the impacts of climate change.

Regionally, Hertfordshire also has a strong role to play in influencing the green agenda and advocating to Government on climate change policy. The East of England Regional Climate Change Forum (RCCF) was formed in early 2022 by the East of England LGA. It is chaired by Hertfordshire County Council leader and

Hertfordshire Growth Board Chair,

Richard Roberts with Matt Partridge, CEO, Stevenage Borough Council, as lead CEO. Hertfordshire also leads on the Climate Adaption sub group.

Cllr Richard Roberts said: “From building new homes to protecting green spaces and growing our economy while cutting carbon emissions, Hertfordshire is perfectly placed to lead the way on sustainable place-making. Our strength is in the range and depth of partnerships forged across local government, business and communities with a shared determination to do even more to create a cleaner, greener and healthier Hertfordshire.”

Hertfordshire’s Green Economy

Understanding the value of green industries to the Hertfordshire economy will be key to its future growth. A new report commissioned by Hertfordshire LEP and Hertfordshire Innovation Quarter (Herts IQ) has found that the low carbon environmental goods and services sector is worth £5.8bn in sales to Hertfordshire’s economy in 2021/22, employing over 40,000 people across 2,000 businesses. Over the next four years, this is set to nearly double to £8.3bn. This brings huge potential for new ‘green’ jobs, businesses and re-skilling opportunities as the county transitions to net zero.

Putting this into context, this sector was worth £205.7bn in 2020/21 to the UK economy, generated by over 75,700 businesses that employed over 1.2 million people in the sector. And while the sector saw similar recovery to the rest of the UK from the economic shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, carbon finance was an exception in Hertfordshire in that it saw 1.1% growth, potentially because of some activity moving out of London. The report also found three sub-sectors that are particularly strong in Hertfordshire: Building Technologies, Alternative Fuels and Vehicles, and Geothermal.

Hertfordshire’s net zero targets are expected to drive significant employment growth, from around 39,000 in 2021/22, to up to 1.2m in 2050, in the core sector and chains and networks of supply. This employment growth, if based within Hertfordshire, presents opportunities for this sector locally to expand services across the wider UK and globally.

This scale of employment growth forecast could deliver far-reaching socio-economic benefits. We know only too well the impact that poor air quality has on health, often affecting the poorest in our communities and putting an additional burden on the NHS. Taking action now to help fix our homes, some of the leakiest in Europe, by reducing energy consumption and emissions through retrofit would help tackle health inequality and put more money in the public and individual homeowners’ purse. It also brings tremendous opportunities for local residents to upskill and retrain.

Earlier this year, social housing landlords secured a total allocation of £105m, including match-funding, from the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. Hertfordshire LEP has identified that over 5,700 social housing properties across the county will benefit from around 18,500 retrofit measures to be installed over the next two years.

The LEP is leveraging this funding opportunity to help build capability and capacity within our new and existing workforces and supply chains. This will be necessary to keep pace with supply and demand pressures to meet net zero emissions targets by 2050. Currently a lack of necessary skills risks creating a bottleneck, significantly reducing delivery potential.

In May, Hertfordshire LEP brought together housing associations, landlords, developers, local authorities and FE colleges to help address this issue, by developing the skills needed to deliver good quality retrofit measures and make our existing housing stock greener, warmer and healthier.

Following this workshop, the LEP is now holding a series of in-depth regional retrofit skills meetings with each of the four FE colleges. This will help local skills providers meet the retrofit skills needs of our housing associations and their construction managing agents. Two meetings have already taken place – West Herts College in the south west of the county and Hertfordshire Regional College in the east, with two more to follow.

In addition, Future Supply Chain and ‘Meet the Buyer’ events are also planned, showcasing the retrofit growth opportunities for our businesses and how they can access this pipeline of work.

Gill Worgan, Principal and Chief Executive, West Herts College, said: “We are delighted to help drive sustainable house building in Hertfordshire by providing the skills so desperately needed for this growing and vitally important sector to thrive.”

Helen Pollock, Clean Growth Manager, Hertfordshire LEP, said: “This investment in social housing will help lift some of our families most in need out of fuel poverty. It has wider consequences too for a variety of trades and supply chain SMEs, enabling them to step up and meet the retrofit and greener homes challenge. This, in turn, could help spearhead a local retrofit skills revolution and drive future business growth.”

As the demand for these skills increases, Hertfordshire Opportunities Portal (www.hopinto.co.uk) has updated its directory of green careers. This creates opportunities both for young people wishing to enter into this sector and those wishing to re-train. The options are wide and varied, be it in companies that create green goods such as electric vehicles or companies that work to reduce the use of natural resources and produce clean energy. Whatever the offer – green jobs are on the rise and play an essential part in growing the Hertfordshire and UK economy.

The main reasons for people taking out larger loans from family and friends are high house prices, rising interest rates and a difficult mortgage market, borrower credit history, student debts and tuition fees. For example, many families are offering loans to help their offspring get a foot on the housing ladder and clear their student debts a bit quicker and friends are helping their friends to purchase investment properties.

These loans have pitfalls for the unwary, so it is critical that you take expert advice, so you are aware of the implications before committing to any loan.

Key factors you need to consider: Affordability

Ask yourself whether you can afford to make the loan. Consider possible changes in your circumstances – would lending the money leave you enough of a buffer? Think carefully about the consequences to your personal relationship with the borrower.

Consider whether the borrower can afford the loan. Will they be able to repay it within a timeframe that you are happy with? Sometimes in these situations the ‘borrower’ is really looking for a gift and has no real intention of repaying