asked Her Majesty's Government:

What percentage of a bid for funding from the Environmental Transformation Fund will need to be funded from a local alliance of organisations wishing to help transform the environmental performance of a street or local area. [HL3050]

On 2 April, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment (Hilary Benn) announced his intention to launch a “Green Neighbourhoods” competition. The competition aims to help up to 100 streets and local areas across England to reduce their carbon footprint by 60 per cent, with a focus on demonstrating what can be achieved with “hard to treat”, older housing stock.

This initiative will be delivered by the Energy Saving Trust, and backed by potentially more than £10 million over the next three years from the UK Environmental Transformation Fund. It will call for local alliances between householders, community groups, local authorities, energy suppliers, private companies, and banks to bid for funding. To receive funding from the Environmental Transformation Fund, bidders will need to join together and commit some funding from their own resources to transform the environmental performance of a street or local area.

Decisions have yet to be taken on the exact scope of the scheme and the amount of co-funding that will be required.