It had finally started to take off - the much vaunted but initially slow Green Deal scheme had 3,234 plans in progress by the end of June - a 14% rise from the end of May. And then, suddenly, it was gone. Almost 1,000 of the plans were new deals with quotes accepted in the month of June, 661 had the plan signed and 1,587 had all measures installed. Altogether more than 29,000 green deal assessments have been completed this month - taking the total to 263,068 from 234,050 by the end of May.

The 29,018 assessments in June is the highest number since the scheme started. By the end of June, 16,428 cashback vouchers had been issued with 13,048 being paid, around £8.1 million, following installation of 13,904 measures. The majority of these have been used for boiler replacements.

The Government then abruptly closed the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund claiming that the allocated budget has now been reached.

Richard Twinn, Policy and Public Affairs Officer at the UK Green Building Council, responding to the latest Government announcement, said “The sudden and immediate closure of this fund is another setback for the energy efficiency industry because companies have specifically geared up to market and deliver through this scheme. These constant changes are not helpful to industry. We now need urgent clarity as to whether Government will bring forward any more money to ensure continuity of Green Deal work.

“This does demonstrate that we need long-term drivers, not short term pots of cash to avoid this continual cycle of boom and bust.”

Neil Schofield, Head of Government and External Affairs at Worcester, Bosch Group, described the decision-making process as a farce. “The scheme was supposed to last for three years and instead has been wound up after seven weeks. We were promised certainty and long-term planning and instead have received ambivalence and short-termism. The decision displays a shocking inability to demand forecast and a total lack of understanding of the dynamics of the heating industry.”

In its press announcement, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Climate Change, Amber Rudd, hailed the scheme’s success saying, “The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is a world first and in a short space of time has proved extremely popular.” Defending the decision to cut the fund, the Minister declared, “We were always clear there was a budget, which is why we encouraged people to act quickly.”

Simon Green, head of sustainability at Lakehouse, said the government was in danger of losing credibility on residential energy-efficiency policy.

He said: ‘The fact that the fund has been exhausted so quickly shows that it was not a meaningful replacement for the significant cuts to ECO and does little to tackle fuel poverty and help the market transition to a greener future.

‘With the flurry of announcements in recent days, our clients in social housing are concerned about how they will meet their energy-efficiency obligations and, by the same token, the government should be worried about meeting its binding carbon commitments. The climate change committee’s latest report to parliament showed clearly that there is a significant policy gap in this area, particularly in terms of housing energy efficiency, and this needs to be urgently addressed.

‘Both the market and some of the UK’s most vulnerable residents have been left with little clarity about how inefficient homes can be upgraded in future.’