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5 minute read
Jessica’s national award leaves others green with envy
Steve Heywood, media manager
A sustainability expert from Penrith has won a national award for her work on a unique project in Cumbria.
Jessica Scott-Henker won the Retrofit Coordinator of the Year Award at the Retrofit Academy Awards in London.
The 24-year-old, who works for Home Group, one of the UK’s largest housing associations with over 10,000 homes in Cumbria, saw off stiff competition to take the national title.
Jessica, who lives in Morland, Penrith, has been coordinating Home Group’s first whole house retrofit programme in Allerdale which includes detailed customer engagement strategy.
The programme is part of multi-million-pound project to make 90 homes in Oughterside and Abbeytown more energy efficient and sustainable.
The project, backed by investment from the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF), will deliver a range of benefits for customers, which will make their homes much more energy efficient and bring them significant cost savings.
The northern-based housing association received £1.2m through the SHDF, which has been supplemented by Home Group to the tune of £3.3m, as part of its five-year retrofit delivery plan.
The former Appleby Grammar School pupil has been working closely with customers from day one to ensure they are fully aware of what the project entails, the technology involved and the benefits they bring.
Jessica’s national award is predominantly a reflection of that work, as well as her efforts in meeting the strict guidelines set down to deliver PAS2035 – a specification for what is called 'whole-house' or 'whole building' retrofit.