Shoreline Housing Partnership, Grimsby’s largest social housing landlord, has been forced to abandon a £30 million scheme which was set to install over 3,300 solar PV systems on homes in North East Lincolnshire as a direct result of Government’s feed-in tariff cuts.

The scheme was intended to help reduce tenants’ electricity bills while concurrently stacking up financially for the company and an unnamed investor. However, the recent slash to FiT payments has made the project financially unviable.

Shoreline Chief Executive Tony Bramley said: “We, along with our partner, had been working on the scheme for eight to nine months.”

“That had been gradually moving forward and over the past few months we had been consulting with tenants.

“The impact of the Government’s announcement is that it has brought the whole scheme to a halt. Our partners and their investor are now unwilling to proceed in the current climate.”

Cleethorpes Conservative MP Martin Vickers defended the Government's decision. “It is disappointing that Shoreline has felt the need to make that decision, but the original decision on subsidies was made to provide seed corn money to establish solar panel businesses and increase the uptake and, given the increase in the number of people who have been able to invest in this area, it is clear it has met its objective,” he said.

The cancellation of the project by Grimsby’s largest social housing landlord follows calls from the National Housing Federation to reconsider FiT subsidies for housing associations and tenants.