A £28million scheme to transform 1,500 Southampton homes could provide work for dozens of local people.

Southampton City Council and British Gas yesterday launched the project which is believed to be the largest in the country.

The scheme will make changes to buildings on four housing estates across the city.

And the council said there could be more to come in the future.

The scheme will see improvements at Dumbleton, Hightown and Meredith Towers and more than 40 walk-up blocks in Thornhill, as well as Shirley Towers and Milner Court in Shirley, Albion Towers in St Mary’s and Sturminster House in Maybush.

Properties will benefit from a range of energy-saving improvements including new windows, new heating systems tenants control, external wall insulation, new roofs, enclosed balconies and coloured insulation panels outside. Workers will lay 4.5km of pipes in Thornhill.

British Gas expects to have 120 people working on the project, starting next month and finishing in spring 2017, aiming, where possible, to recruit local people and suppliers.

Stephen Beynon, British Gas managing director of residential energy, said he believed the project’s size and scale made it the largest community energy project in the UK.

It is funded with £22m from the council’s Housing Revenue Account and £6m from British Gas.

Council member for housing Cllr Warwick Payne said HRA money – largely tenants’ rent – could only be spent on improving housing stock so this did not affect spending on council services and the council would not be increasing rents to pay for it.

He said a government survey showed some 10,000 households in Southampton were classed as being in fuel poverty.

“With the scheme we’re bringing forward we hope we might be able to lift hundreds of people out of that bracket,” he said.

“Our focus is on several areas of the city that are most deprived.”

At present many tenant properties in the city pay a set heating charge determined by the overall council bill.

Now tenants in these buildings will have their own meters so will pay for what they use.

The council will look to build a wood chip furnace centre in Thornhill to provide heating for the buildings, which will need planning permission.

Lorries carrying woodchip would visit once or twice a week.

Nick Cross, council head of housing, said burning would release largely water vapour not smoke, it would not be harmful to residents and air quality tests would be done.

Further small furnaces would be built in Maybush and Shirley close to the towers.