The Government wants to make new homes carbon neutral in the future, to help reduce our country’s impact on the planet.
We agree that everybody should play their part in making a greener future and we think social housing could be a trailblazer for this.
The Government is proposing some new rules - the Future Homes Standard - to encourage house-builders to build carbon neutral homes, and as a developer ourselves we mostly agree with them.
We do have some concerns though, which we’ve told the Government about in our response to their consultation:
- The Government's target of 75-80% fewer CO2 emissions is ambitious and could cost up to £15,000 for every home - but we think we're up to the challenge
- The right funding has got to be in place so the cost of reducing the carbon footprint isn’t passed on to low income households via bigger energy bills or expensive equipment
- The Government needs to make sure that any new rules on building only apply to homes built after the new rules come in, so house-builders aren’t landed with expensive bills to make recently-completed homes fit the new rules.
You can read our full response to the Government (six pages) here.
