Two ordinary council houses in York are about to do something extraordinary: show tens of thousands of households how to upgrade their homes in the right order for the right reasons. This won’t be done via a brochure, but in a living, interactive model. It’s part of the city’s push to hit net zero by 2030 and scale retrofit across ~44,000 homes, backed by Innovate UK funding and a new one-stop shop called YorEnergy
 

This is for city leaders, mayors, ministers and programme directors who need the public to say “yes” at scale. York’s question wasn’t “what is a heat pump?” It was: “How do we move thousands from interest to action?”

 
City of York Council is deep-retrofitting two council homes to exemplar standards and opening them up (physically and virtually) so people can see what “good” looks like. In parallel, YorEnergy provides a single hub for tailored advice, vetted installers and finance.

Cityscape Digital has partnered with Energy Systems Catapult to set the approach for the public-facing showroom: an interactive 3D home in Unreal Engine where anyone can walk a typical York house and toggle measures: insulation, airtightness, low-carbon heat, rooftop PV, while outcomes update in real time. The point isn’t the software; it’s the method: make the sequence visible and expose interdependencies. We pioneered and proved this method with national partners at DESNZ (then BEIS), Energy Systems Catapult and The Alan Turing Institute, turning policy scenarios into tools leaders could interrogate; York localises that playbook and makes it real.

Retrofit often fails when people can’t picture the end state, don’t trust the sequence, or can’t weigh trade-offs. Our model reduces the complexity of each measure to three clear outcomes for every decision: Cost, Comfort and Carbon. Cut heat demand first, and the heat pump size and running costs drop with it. You can feel the difference as you move through the rooms. 

York has wrapped the tool in a delivery system: demonstrator homes the public can tour and a one-stop journey that points residents to credible installers and finance. For councils, combined authorities and landlords, it’s a template you can adopt and localise. Swap in your archetypes, tariffs and grants, but keep the method. 

The UK must upgrade a large share of its 29 million homes before 2050. The government’s £13.2bn Warm Homes Plan (2025-2030) sets the direction, but money alone won’t shift behaviour. Trusted, joined-up, people-centred journeys will. That’s the gap York and this tool-plus-service model are closing.

For NLA members, three immediate takeaways:

York is a stepping stone to connected digital twins for place-based decarbonisation: city toolkits that talk to policy models, building data and live delivery systems so leaders can see trade-offs, target spend and track uptake in near real time.

Cityscape Digital’s view is simple: if people can see it, they’ll do it. And if they can do it easily, they’ll tell their neighbours. That’s how two houses help a city and how a city sets a pattern others can adopt.