Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 (closed to applications)
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-27)

Funding for local authorities and social housing landlords to improve the energy performance of social homes in England.

Wave 3 guidance: November 2025 updates

The scheme guidance was updated to remove the ‘Cost Caps - Total co-funding used on homes accessing the on gas grid low carbon heating incentive offer in the Phase’ line from the Baseline Information at Phase Request Stage table (page 81).

This information will no longer be baselined at Phase Request stage. It will instead be provided by grant recipients in their monthly reports.

This fund was previously known as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/social-housing-decarbonisation-fund).

See the list of Social Housing Landlords, including local authorities and housing associations awarded funding (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/warm-homes-social-housing-fund-wave-3-successful-social-housing-landlords-including-local-authorities-and-housing-associations) under the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund to be delivered 2025 until September 2028.

Overview

The Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund will upgrade a significant amount of the social housing stock currently below Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band C up to that standard. It will support the installation of energy performance measures in social homes in England, and help:
- deliver warm, energy efficient homes
- reduce carbon emissions
- tackle fuel poverty
- support green jobs
- develop the retrofit sector
- improve the comfort, health and well-being of social housing tenants
This wave builds on the allocations made under the previous waves of SHDF (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/social-housing-decarbonisation-fund).

The Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 has been allocated £1.29 billion as part of the Autumn Budget. See a breakdown of the funding available (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/warm-homes-social-housing-fund-wave-3-budget-allocation).

The application window closed on 25 November 2024.

Successful Social Housing Landlords (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/warm-homes-social-housing-fund-wave-3-successful-social-housing-landlords-including-local-authorities-and-housing-associations) will use the funding to install energy performance upgrades and low carbon heating.

Application routes

There were 2 routes to access funding under Wave 3:
- the Challenge Fund
- Strategic Partnerships
Further detail on both routes is available within the scheme guidance.

Eligibility

Wave 3 was open to the following (subject to exceptions (#exceptions)):
- local authorities
- combined authorities
- registered providers of social housing (including housing associations and arms-length management organisations (ALMOs) that are registered providers)
- registered charities that own social housing
The above organisations, along with ALMOs that are not registered providers, could have applied as part of a consortium led by an organisation that was eligible.

Exceptions

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and their constituent local authorities were not eligible for the scheme.

GMCA and WMCA have received an allocation of funding as part of the government’s commitment to the Warm Homes and Public Sector Decarbonisation Devolution Programme. To learn more about this please refer to the Integrated Settlement GOV.UK page (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/integrated-settlements-for-mayoral-combined-authorities).

In most cases, housing associations whose projects include stock in GMCA/WMCA and elsewhere in the country had to split the project and seek funding for each project from the appropriate funding stream (GMCA, WMCA or WH:SHF).

We recognised that in a small number of circumstances, it may have been more appropriate for a housing association to obtain funding from a single source and those requests were on a case-by-case basis.

Properties

All existing social housing as defined by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (sections 68 to 70), below EPC band C, regardless of archetype, were eligible for this scheme.

Delivery timeline

Delivery for Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 will run to September 2028. All grant funding for Wave 3 projects must be transferred to the grant recipient and spent by 31 March 2028, and projects can only use co-funding in the final 6 months of delivery.

Help and support

If you have any enquiries about Wave 3, you can email:

xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)