A STUDY has claimed that over 33,000 jobs could be created in Lancashire if the government commits to a green economy.

The analysis has been published by UK100, a group of over 100 mayors and local authority leaders, and was collected by the University of Leeds and the LSE Grantham Institute.

It claims that in total 1,211,158 jobs, 33,536 of them in Lancashire, could be created across the UK in the construction and manufacturing sectors, which would come as a relief to industries that have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

UK100 director Polly Billington said: “Across the UK, the move to a greener economy will create thousands of new jobs in every local community.

"It’s really important we don’t lose sight of this critical long term goal so the Prime Minister can meet his explicit goal of building back better.”

The study claims that Lancashire could be the are with the highest potential number of new construction and property jobs created, followed by Hampshire and Essex.

Moves towards a green economy could include maintaining the government's Green Homes Grant scheme to provide funding of up to £10,000 to homeowners to make their homes more sustainable and energy efficient and by investing in low carbon manufacturing and devices such as electric cars.

Research gathered by UK100 from the UK Green Building Council has estimated that to achieve net zero carbon by 2050, the UK will need to improve almost all of the country’s 29 million homes, meaning we need to retrofit more than 1.8 homes every minute between now and 2050

Although the UK100 jobs data is not time specific, a recent report by the New Economics Foundation which interviewed industry experts found that “a period of three to four years was thought to be required to train up the supply chain to full capacity.”

Find out more about UK100 and its research at: https://www.uk100.org/.