We Are England S2022E84 - Money and Me A Home without Bills?

Having hung up his boots for good, ex pro-footballer Scott Golbourne (Bristol City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Barnsley, Exeter City) was looking for a new challenge. For the past few years, he's been running a property development company with his best mate and business partner Cameron Wright, a former teacher. They now own 20 properties in Birmingham with a particular focus on the social housing end of the market.

Scott and Cameron have both seen people close to them suffer in poor housing, and as the cost of living gets ever worse, they're determined to find ways to help their tenants by keeping the bills down on their properties. To do this, they want to learn as much as they can about carbon-efficient properties so that they can apply their new-found knowledge to a set of properties they've recently acquired in Gravelly Hill, Birmingham.

First, they visit architect John Christophers at his home, ‘The Zero Carbon House', in Balsall Heath, Birmingham – it's the UK's first zero carbon retrofitted home. John and his wife Jo moved into the house, originally a Victorian terrace, 14 years ago. In that time, they've paid no energy bills at all by making the house 95% energy efficient.

Scott and Cameron also visit a new social housing project in Edgbaston, Birmingham. ‘Project 80', as it's known, is a new estate of flats built by housing provider Midland Heart. They've designed the flats to meet the new housing standards for efficiency, which will affect all new builds from 2025.

Scott and Cameron then head to the Forest of Dean to meet Nancy, a resident currently having her home retrofitted by the estate managers. Will the changes to her property help her to keep the costs down as winter kicks in, and will Scott and Cameron pick up enough tips to be able to use on their projects?