The Green Deal is officially one year old. Has it lived up to expectations?

Vern Pitt

The Green Deal celebrated its first birthday on Tuesday and if it were a young child receiving a report from its nursery it would probably read “failing to thrive”. Take up has been substantially lower than expected, by any measure you care to use, and construction firms are scaling back their ambitions for the burgeoning energy efficiency retrofit sector.

But that doesn’t mean that it should be written off. Even if the current government’s rhetoric has lost all but the last vestiges of its green hue, energy bills are still set on an upward trajectory and the more people have to spend on energy the more inclined they will be to take up efficiency measures.

Plus, there are a whole raft of options to boost the scheme currently on the table. None of them will be a wonder cure for the programme’s problems, but almost anything under consideration would be a boost to its current sickly state.

There is still hope that by its second birthday the programme will be starting to stand on its own and maybe even start to walk.

Vern Pitt, senior reporter

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