EPC Band B on paper. Consuming more energy in 2024/25 than before its £5m decarbonisation programme. The EPC and DEC diverge by 82 points. Here's what the full public record says.
Floor area
37,200 m²
10 storeys
Landlord
L&G Retirement
Acquired £243m, 2019
Occupiers
DWP / NHS / DHSC
Occupancy change 2025
How this was produced
This analysis draws entirely on UK public data registers. No site visits were conducted, no proprietary data was purchased, and no assumptions were made that cannot be traced back to a named source. The methodology — NBIP's Reality Simulation Engine — works by collecting data from 14 authoritative public sources across 5 core pillars and reading them together. Most of the findings below are invisible in any individual source. They only become visible when the sources are cross-referenced.
Pillar 1 — Aggregated Truth
EPC, DEC, Land Registry, VOA, Heritage, Planning — the verified factual baseline.
Pillar 2 — Reality Check
Satellite ground motion, LiDAR, flood hydrology, air quality — what the building faces in the real world.
Pillar 3 — Future Inference
Cross-source patterns, retrofit history, socioeconomic context — what the trajectory looks like.
15 Sources collected
14-Year Energy Record
Operational Rating (OR) from Display Energy Certificates — lower is better. Benchmark: 100.
2022/23: District heating fully operational — gas eliminated, OR falls to 75 (C). 2024/25: Electricity spikes to 8.49m kWh — OR rebounds to 113 (E), the worst recorded. Total CO₂ now exceeds the pre-decarbonisation baseline.
Findings
6 totalEach finding is the product of cross-referencing multiple sources. The first two are expanded by default — they are the most material. Recommended actions are addressed to the institutions with responsibility for the building.
The 2024 EPC gives Quarry House an Asset Rating of 31 — Band B, outperforming the new-build benchmark. On paper, this is a well-performing building. The 2024/25 DEC tells a different story: an Operational Rating of 113 — Band E — making it one of the worst-performing years in the building's 14-year metered record, and worse than it was before the district heating system was installed.
The EPC models a design intent scenario. It assumes the building operates at its engineered optimum, with 100% district heating and zero gas. The DEC measures what actually happened in the metered year: 8,487,741 kWh of electricity — the highest in 14 years of data. These two certificates describe two different realities, and neither one on its own is wrong. Read in isolation, each is misleading.
For any institution using EPC ratings as a proxy for energy risk — an insurer pricing a climate-linked policy, a lender assessing a loan-to-value position, a public body reporting Scope 1 and 2 emissions — this building is carrying an 82-point misrepresentation in the official record. The EPC is not evidence of performance. It is evidence of a model.
Recommended action
Reconcile the EPC asset rating against metered DEC performance before using either certificate as a basis for compliance reporting, insurance pricing, or investment decisions. Where the gap exceeds 30 points, treat the EPC as a planning document, not a performance document.
Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, electricity consumption at Quarry House increased from 4,829,115 kWh to 8,487,741 kWh — a 75% rise in a single year, with no change in the district heating arrangement and no gas remaining on site. The obvious candidates — extreme weather, flooding, a cold winter — can be ruled out. River Aire monitoring data for 2024/25 shows a maximum level of 1.704m: unremarkable, well within normal bounds.
Cross-referencing the Government's State of the Estate 2024-25 report identifies the most credible explanation: a change of occupier during 2025 brought high-density, always-on infrastructure into the building. The 2026 DEC records an air conditioning rated output of 5,504 kW, consistent with this occupancy profile.
This is an unplanned and permanent increase in energy liability. L&G as landlord, DWP as head leaseholder, and the public bodies occupying the building are now managing an energy cost baseline that is structurally higher than any point in the building's previous record — including before the decarbonisation programme began. The estimated energy cost for 2024/25 is approximately £2.4m. At current electricity prices, the occupancy-attributable load increase represents a material ongoing liability with no remediation plan visible in the public record.
Recommended action
Commission an operational energy audit that isolates the new occupancy-driven infrastructure load from base building consumption. Without this disaggregation, energy reduction targets, carbon reporting, and lease obligations cannot be accurately assessed. L&G should review whether the current lease structure appropriately allocates energy cost risk given the change in occupancy profile.
Confidence Tier 3 — Enhanced
14 of 14 sources retrieved across 5 core pillars. All energy, heritage, structural, environmental, and ownership data confirmed from primary public sources. Where a building-level feed was unavailable, the finding is grounded in the nearest authoritative public record rather than inferred. Sufficient for institutional-grade conclusions on energy performance, structural condition, heritage constraints, climate risk, and occupancy trajectory.
This building is not unusual. It is representative.
There are thousands of non-domestic buildings in the UK with the same combination of ageing fabric, legacy energy systems, heritage constraints, and public sector occupancy. Most of them have never been looked at this way. The data exists. The question is whether the people with responsibility for these buildings are reading it — or relying on the EPC alone.
Analysis produced by NBIP using the Reality Simulation Engine (RSE). All sources are UK public registers. No proprietary data. No site visits. Published June 2026.
Sources: EPC/DEC Register (MHCLG), Land Registry, Valuation Office Agency, Historic England NHLE, Planning Portal, EGMS InSAR (Copernicus), EA Flood Mapping, National LiDAR Programme, DEFRA Air Quality, ONS/IMD, MCS/TrustMark.