You may have seen the recent news article claiming that 30,000 homes in the UK, retrofitted under government-funded schemes, could now be at risk of condensation, damp, and mould. That figure may well be an exaggeration, but we know there is still something deeply wrong in the retrofit industry. Minister Fahnbullah’s statements in both January and July this year made that clear, pointing to serious, systemic issues in the installation of solid wall insulation under the GBIS and ECO4 schemes, and describing the scale of non-compliance as unacceptable. For those of us who have been in the industry for a while, the reaction is a weary sigh and the familiar question: “How can this be happening again?”

The BRE report on solid wall insulation that triggered the Each Home Counts review, and later the creation of PAS 2035/2030, is now a decade old. Not all of the recommendations from Each Home Counts have been implemented — particularly those around supporting consumers in their retrofit decisions — but the hope was that the BSI Retrofit Standards Framework would mark a turning point for quality in the sector. What slipped through the net in the early days of PAS 2035 was robust enforcement of compliance with those standards.

Before you lose the will to read on, I do believe things are beginning to change. Trustmark, the Government-endorsed quality scheme, is unrecognisable from what it was just a few years ago. It has made huge strides in detecting non-compliance in PAS 2035 projects, using advanced algorithms to flag high-risk cases. The results were stark and the figures were alarming enough for Minister Fahnbullah to raise them in the House of Commons back in January. We now await the results of the full audit this autumn, with the hope that lower-risk projects show much stronger outcomes.

The important point is that it has taken Trustmark several years to reach a stage where non-compliance can be detected quickly and action taken effectively. They are now trialling artificial intelligence to assess photos, images, and text submitted in retrofit documentation. This process is evolving, becoming more accurate, and crucially, stopping problems before they lead to condensation, damp, and mould in people’s homes.

Alongside this, we are starting to see greater collaboration between Trustmark, UKAS, and the Certification bodies. For too long the system has been fragmented, with organisations working in silos and leaving gaps where poor practice could slip through. That is beginning to change. By working together, these bodies are building a more joined-up system that strengthens oversight, reduces duplication, and makes it harder for non-compliance to go unnoticed.

What we need next are real penalties for repeat offenders, and serious consequences for those who deliberately flout regulations and put people’s homes and health at risk. We want everyone in our industry to care — to genuinely want to make homes better places to live. If we can achieve that, we can finally start to build consumer trust in retrofit across the UK.