Costs to the public of retrofitting properties to reduce emissions are a key issue for those working to decarbonise Cumbria.

Research carried out by Localis, Propertymark and the National Residential Landlords Association has found that the North West is likely to be the hardest hit by retrofitting costs.

Increasing energy efficiency in the nation's homes is a key factor in reducing the UK's carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, but the report shows that in some local authorities, particularly in the North West, the estimated cost of retrofit is over 15 per cent of the property value.

Copeland was 10th on a list of hardest hit areas in the report with Barrow-in-Furness placed 13th.

The Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, which is made up of 70 cross-sector organisations, is working to reduce the county's emissions to nil by 2037.

And partnership manager Tim Gale said that costs to communities were at the forefront of their minds.

He said: "What we're trying to achieve through the partnership across all the sector work including housing is carbon reduction."

He said that significant reductions would be needed domestically "to stay with that 2037 net zero target".

"But we're really concious that there's fairness in the transition. We're working across our sector groups including the housing group to make sure that fairness and just transition is built into their work programmes."

Carlisle City Council's health and wellbeing panel heard of the partnership's work last week. Mr Gale's report pointed to domestic properties as one of the larger producers of carbon emissions.

Mr Gale said: "Overall what I would say is carbon reduction isn't being done in isolation. One of the great challenges we have around housing, particularly in Cumbria, is we have some areas that are disadvantaged and there's issues with poor quality housing so fuel poverty is an issue already."

He said that it was important to understand the housing situation where works to reduce emissions were taking place.

Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership will look to access all of the funding for the retrofitting of properties available to account for this.

Mr Gale said that work was ongoing to organise an event in November where the findings of the Youth Climate Summit were presented to "to the people who hold the purse strings."

Localis chief executive, Jonathan Werran, said: “Without a tailored and localised approach that considers the varying housing economics of each locality, a ‘one size fits all’ approach to funding retrofitting threatens to deepen regional inequality and counter efforts to level up in red wall areas.

“If the challenge of how to effectively support retrofit properties in low value areas is not met, we risk creating a dangerous divide between different parts of the country.”