Green Deal work undertaken by Birmingham City Council is to extend to non-domestic public buildings, spending £1.2bn on retrofitting over eight years.

Manager of the Council’s Birmingham Energy Savers programme, David Allport, said increasing the scope to non-domestic public buildings would increase value and reduce risk.

“We took legal advice on whether out procurement could be used by other authorities and landlords, so we went out to all the public authorities in the West Midlands and the larger housing associations, and we’ve had an incredible response from them.”

The Council was preparing to publish an OJEU tender notice for a lead partner or contractors to manage the programme, but instead extended it to September to allow for further consultation with financers and construction firms.

Originally the Council was to invest £100m into its Green Deal work through council borrowing and investment from energy companies. But the Council says that if the lead partner acquires financing, this would be increased to £400m.

“The big financiers do not want to take the first loss of this. There is a risk of market failure, which is why we see the role for us coming in,” Mr Allport added.