Belfast Climate Commissioner Meets with Retrofit Hub at SERC Professional Skills Centre

The meeting took place at the Construction Industry Training Board Northern Ireland (CITB NI) facility at Nutts Corner, where the visitors were given a tour of SERC’s Professional Skills Centre facility. 

Led by Debbie Caldwell, the purpose of the Hub is to help move towards the goal of retrofitting housing in Belfast with more efficient energy usage, to reduce carbon emissions and energy demand, in line with the commitment to make Belfast homes carbon neutral by 2050. The Hub brings together the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, business leaders, key organisations and Belfast City Council to catalyse retrofit activity relating to all public and private buildings in Belfast. SERC was at the meeting to represent the training sector as part of the FE provision for the Retrofit Hub.   

Debbie Caldwell, Climate Commissioner - Belfast City Council, commented, “Buildings are our biggest source of emissions in the city due to our reliance on oil and gas for heating. This is compounded by the poor energy performance of our ageing housing stock and many of our public buildings which contributes to high running costs and fuel poverty. The retrofit hub is committed to getting the right people in the room to develop a pipeline of retrofit work across the city so we can meet our net zero targets, create jobs and divert money saved from energy efficiency into more productive parts of the economy.” 

During the meeting, attendants discussed models and experiences from other districts to look at how they can be adapted to suit the Belfast landscape of retrofitting buildings within the BCC council area. 

Organisations in attendance included SSE Airtricity, Energystore, CITB NI, South West College, Belfast Met, Dublin City Council, Department for Education, Strategic Investment Board, Ulster University Jordanstown, Federation of Master Builders, City Electrical Factors, Royal Society of Ulster Architects, Danske Bank and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.  

Attendees were shown around CITB’s facilities by Paul Henry, SERC Lead Business Service Consultant (Energy & Renewables). Paul has been involved with BCC on the Retrofit Hub as a part of the education skills sector, providing information on skills and training available to upskill and reskill the current workforce, to meet the challenges of retrofitting in construction. 

The attendees saw an external wall insulation project and visited SERC’s Professional Skills Centre. SERC was especially proud to be able to show some of the Green Technologies and Retrofit equipment in its Professional Skills Centre as examples of best practice. They were also given information regarding courses at SERC designed to support the Retrofit Hub’s aims, including the OCN NI Level 5 Certificate in Green Technologies and the OCN NI Level 5 Certificate in Retrofitting Domestic Properties. 

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