YORK council is “increasingly unlikely” to reach its goal of retrofitting 60 council homes using government funding - due to survey delays and a shortage of materials.

The council, whose leader is Keith Aspden, planned to upgrade 60 of its 7,500 council homes to make them more energy efficient, help reduce fuel bills and tackle climate change.

But a report outlining the council’s work to reduce carbon emissions from housing says delays and supply chain issues mean the work is not likely to be completed by the December deadline for spending the cash.

“The implications of the delays with survey and design work combined with shortage in the supply chain means that achieving the retrofit of 60 council homes utilising [Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery 2 scheme] funding (deadline end of December 2021) is increasingly unlikely,” a housing report says.

“It is therefore planned that there will be a reduced number of council homes which are improved utilising [the] grant contributions.”

It adds that the government is set to open a new social housing decarbonisation fund for bids.

The housing report also reviews a recent council crackdown on cold and draughty private rental homes in the city.

More than 300 homes were not meeting energy performance standards in York, according to the council, which took part in a national project to tackle the problem.

It says 75 homes were upgraded as a result of the scheme. Councils have powers to tackle landlords who rent out homes with poor energy efficiency ratings and properties must be rated Energy Performance Certificate E or better in order to be let out.

A City of York Council housing team report says: “The improvement of energy performance within the private rented sector can both reduce the overall carbon emissions of the city thus helping to tackle climate change, as well as improving the health and financial circumstances of our residents.

“However, the scale of the challenge is significant with this project identifying over 300 non-compliant homes in the city. This pilot has supported 75 of these homes to achieve a compliant EPC rating and certification.”

The council issued 10 landlords with compliance notices and a number of properties have had work done to bring them up to better energy efficiency standards.

Experts reckon that this has led to around 193 tonnes of CO2 emissions being cut per year as a result of improvements to 50 homes.

The council has committed to going carbon neutral by 2030 and cutting CO2 emissions from the city’s housing is a major part of that goal.

A raft of measures have been launched to cut emissions from homes - including plans to build highly energy efficient housing to passivhaus standard on the council’s development sites and proposals to retrofit existing council houses with better insulation and heating to make them more environmentally friendly.

The Government has launched a consultation on plans to increase the energy efficiency of rented homes by only allowing landlords to rent out properties that have a C rating or higher from 2025.

The council says this would affect around 9,000 more homes in the city, which are rated D or E.

The topic will be discussed at a meeting on Monday.