Saffron Housing, which provides homes across Norfolk, Suffolk and East Anglia, secured £7 million in 2025 through Wave 3 of the Warm Homes Social Housing Fund to improve energy efficiency across its housing stock over three years. Planned works include window replacement, air-source heat pumps, solar PV, and loft insulation.
Led by Saffron’s Carbon Reduction Manager, Richard Egle, the programme has developed from a small in-house scheme in the early funding phase, to use of an energy provider supply chain and then to a main contractor-led solution.
However, for the last phase, Saffron returned to an in-house delivery model using local specialist suppliers.
The outcomes of this different way of doing things speak for themselves, with 265 properties set to be delivered at EPC C rating for the same budget as the initial 150 planned.
Having worked with Saffron for their planned window scheme, Anglian Building Products (ABP) were chosen to carry out the window element of the works alongside Dodd Group and CPH Retrofit Coordinators for other services.
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Richard Egle comments: “To maximise regional economic benefits, all partners were locally based. ABP’s head office is in Norwich, with CPH opening a new office in Norfolk. This local presence improved collaboration, enabled quicker documentation turnaround, enhanced quality assurance, and strengthened resident engagement.
“Knowledge sharing was embedded through regular meetings and site visits, allowing teams to exchange best practices. This collaborative approach improved consistency, reduced delays, and minimised installation issues, helping maintain programme momentum and ensuring successful delivery at scale.”
Saffron has worked closely with Anglian Building Products across our SHDF programmes and now through the Warm Homes Wave 3 delivery. As part of this partnership, the Saffron project team was given a comprehensive tour of Anglian’s Norwich manufacturing facility, providing a valuable opportunity to see the full window production process from start to finish.
The visit allowed the team to spend a full day learning about the latest products, technologies, and manufacturing innovations, while engaging directly with specialists and asking detailed questions about current and future developments. This experience has helped to strengthen the partnership between Saffron Housing and Anglian Building Products, ensuring that innovation remains at the forefront of our Warm Homes delivery programme and supporting our commitment to delivering high-quality, energy-efficient homes for our tenants.
Samantha Alleyne, Head of Business Development at Anglian Building Products comments: “Making the choice to stay local and to support local specialist suppliers, demonstrates how possible, and in this case beneficial, it is to deliver complex schemes whilst maintaining a high quality of works, provide local jobs and apprenticeships, as well as gaining high resident satisfaction scoring.
“We commend Saffron on taking this approach and being brave enough to do things differently. The outcomes speak for themselves: 265 properties set to achieve EPC C Rating or above in Year 1 for the same budget as the initial 150 that were planned, and Incredible tenant satisfaction, as indicated by our overall NPS Scores of 81.10.
“Working with local and, in particular, specialist contractors, brings expert knowledge and commitment to specific regions and types of work. Saffron recognised this and collaboratively we’ve created a model that could be replicated by other housing organisations across the UK.”
