'The places that can’t afford to be left behind' was how ADE: Heat Networks described the latest funding round, and that line will ring true in Rochdale and Salford. Announced on 20 May, the package puts two North West areas into a wider push to cut heating costs, improve older systems and bring some long-overdue attention to the pipes, plant and controls behind homes, schools and public buildings. More than 10,000 residents across England and Wales, along with hospitals and charities, are expected to benefit from lower bills through the latest round. For northern readers, the real interest is not in Westminster wording but in whether these schemes make homes warmer, bills steadier and stretched public services a bit less exposed to volatile energy costs.

The money comes in two pots. One is £15.6 million for efficiency upgrades to 94 heat networks across England and Wales, aimed at older systems that waste heat and push up costs. The other is £25 million for four projects in England that will build or expand cleaner heat networks. In practical terms, that means replacing leaky pipes, insulating pipework to reduce heat loss and fitting better interface units in homes so residents have more control over their heating. It is not glamorous work, but anyone who has lived with an unreliable communal system will know how much these changes matter.

Rochdale’s share is £1 million, and it is one of the more eye-catching schemes in the round. The plan is to draw heat from a sewer running through the town and use it to supply low-carbon heating to colleges, schools, Rochdale Infirmary, businesses and residential buildings, including social housing. That gives the project a very local weight. This is not clean heat as an abstract target on a ministerial briefing note; it is a proposal tied to buildings people use every day and services that are already under pressure to keep costs down.

Salford’s allocation is £1.2 million, focused on improving the older heating system serving three 1960s high-rise blocks. It is a smaller figure than some of the headline awards elsewhere, but it speaks to the same issue seen in many northern towns and cities: communal systems that have aged badly and too often leave residents paying for inefficiency. This sort of upgrade rarely attracts much fanfare, yet it can make an immediate difference. When communal heat works poorly, tenants feel it first in patchy service, less control and bills that do not match the standard of the heating they receive. When it is fixed properly, the benefit is plain enough without anyone needing to dress it up.

Elsewhere, the biggest single award in the capital funding round goes to Bristol, with £13.5 million to expand the Bristol City Leap heat network. Ministers say that scheme will use heat pumps to deliver fossil fuel-free heating to more homes and businesses and support more than 1,000 jobs, apprenticeships and work placements. There is also £8.6 million for the next phase of the King’s Cross Heating and Cooling Network in London, which serves more than 1,700 homes and 44 buildings using heat pumps, and £2.2 million for a scheme in Atherstone, Warwickshire, using waste heat from the Baddesley Energy from Waste facility to supply low-carbon heating to 1,700 homes. The efficiency round also includes £2.1 million for five heat networks in Solihull and £2.1 million for two networks in Camden. It is a national programme on paper, but the North West entries stand out because they are tied so closely to older housing stock and everyday public service use.

Martin McCluskey, the minister for energy consumers, said the case for moving away from fossil fuels had been sharpened again by instability in global markets. In government terms, this funding sits within the Warm Homes Plan, which ministers say is meant to cut bills, tackle fuel poverty and improve the way homes and buildings are heated over the rest of the decade. The government has already committed £195 million a year for the Green Heat Network Fund and £15 million a year for the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme through to 2029/30. Heat networks, put simply, supply multiple buildings from a central source, whether that heat comes from pumps, factories, data centres or other forms of waste heat. Ministers see them as part of the wider push towards clean power by 2030.

Chris Unsworth of ADE: Heat Networks said the funding would reach 'the places that can’t afford to be left behind', and that is the right standard to judge it by. The promise from Whitehall is clean, affordable and reliable heat. The test in places such as Rochdale and Salford is how quickly that promise turns into lower charges for households and stronger budgets for schools, hospitals and charities. For the North, this is one of those infrastructure stories that only becomes visible when it goes wrong or when it finally starts working properly. If these upgrades are delivered well, residents will notice it in the bill, in the temperature of the flat and in the resilience of the local services around them. That matters far more than the announcement line.