The STA has submitted its response to the government’s ‘Cutting red tape review of house building’, calling for the government to establish a clear and ambitious regulatory roadmap for sustainability standards in new build housing. The government is currently focusing on maximising the build rate, however lower standards tend to lock in higher carbon emissions as well as higher energy bills for occupants, and they also do so for decades to come.
Alternatively, higher low carbon standards provide a level playing field on which different emissions reductions strategies can compete. According to the STA, there is no evidence that such strategies lead to constraints on house building. Given that the cost of solar energy has fallen dramatically in recent years, new build is an ideal way of taking the technology forward.
“The scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes policy in July 2015 was one of the most incomprehensible acts of the new government, given that we were nine years into a ten year plan that hundreds of companies were working towards” said Mike Landy, Head of Policy at the STA. “ It has left a policy vacuum and the government has yet to explain the rationale for its decision. Solar energy is perfectly suited to new build and ought to become a standard feature on new housing. The 70 percent cost reductions since 2010 means that any additional build costs can be recouped within years through lower energy bills - builders need to work with surveyors, estate agents and mortgage lenders to ensure these benefits are recognised. Local authorities have a responsibility to help achieve the 80 percent carbon emission reduction required by the Climate Change Act. We encourage them to use their planning powers to require house builders to use solar energy as a highly effective and cost-effective way of contributing to that goal.”
The STA’s response highlights the fact that the scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes policy took place one week after the government’s official watchdog, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), recommended in its 2015 progress report to Parliament that the “government should “implement the zero carbon homes standard without further weakening.”
The response also states that, in the absence of suitable standards through national Building Regulations, it is important that local authorities continue to require house builders to use planning powers for the incorporation of minimum levels of on-site renewable in new housing developments.
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