In June and July 2023 we used a city-wide questionnaire to ask people about the challenges of homeowner retrofit, to spread the word about the potential for collaborative community-led retrofit, to gather opinions on the perceived relative importance of different aspects and to get input on what might ease the process. We’re using the results to help us plan what to do, where and when.
NB: The questionnaire remains open – we’re keen to continue to get your views and rankings on obstacles (and possible means of overcoming them) to both building retrofit and improvement in general as well as the advantages and challenges of working collaboratively in a community-led way.
A summary of key results:
143 responses from 54 city neighbourhoods!
75% from shared ownership buildings.
Major concerns (about both individual and collaborative retrofit) were:
– Costs;
– The challenges working with others;
– Trustworthiness of many aspects of the process;
– Legal changes needed.
Specific concerns for collaborative retrofit were:
– Management and leadership of joint projects;
– Knowing what to do at building level;
– Additional legal aspects for joint projects;
– Wanting to see prior examples of successful collaborative retrofit.
Preferences to help overcome the concerns about collaborative work were:
– External independent assistance.
So what next?
We’ll be using the messages from the questionnaire responses to closely inform and guide our future work on things such as:
– Events and workshops;
– Creation of guides;
– Real case studies and ‘hero stories’;
– Creating other local community groups, or communities of interest;
– Becoming a known trustworthy, independent community intermediary;
– Considering ways of minimising costs and maximising financial support for collaborative projects.
