Award for transformative home upgrades for families in Norfolk

Great Yarmouth Borough Council wins best local authority-led retrofit programme at the Retrofit Academy Awards 2025

An ambitious project to upgrade more than 300 homes in the popular seaside town of Great Yarmouth has won a top accolade at this year’s Retrofit Academy Awards.

The annual event, run by the Retrofit Academy, is dedicated to celebrating excellence in retrofit, bringing together stakeholders working towards a more sustainable built environment and celebrating their achievements.

The council’s Home Upgrade Grant Phase 2 (HUG2) funded project is delivering energy efficiency upgrades to a total of 355 homes.

Driven by passionate experts at Great Yarmouth Borough Council and delivery partner E.ON, the HUG2 project won ‘best local authority led retrofit programme’.

In 2024, the council also won ‘regional large-scale project (>£250k) of the year’ for the East of England at the Energy Efficiency Awards. 

Watch our short video where Nicola Turner, council head of housing assets, explains what the awards mean to the teams delivering these important projects. 

The recent win at the Retrofit Academy Awards further recognises Great Yarmouth’s commitment to tackle fuel poverty in off-gas homes with an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of D or below. 

EPC ratings show how energy efficient a property is. The rating takes into account insulation, lighting and heating. They are designed to help people to understand the energy performance of their home. The numerical scale uses bandings to rate from a ‘very efficient’ A to an ‘inefficient’ G.

At the time of award submission, delivery partner E.ON calculated that the scheme was delivering an average of £483 in annual energy bills savings per property.

Coming up: keep an eye on our website for our story that spotlights how two families feel about their experiences with the scheme. We’ll also be covering details about the council’s ambitions for retrofit and decarbonisation and how the strong partnership between council and delivery partner E.ON has enabled success.