Madeleine Greenhalgh, policy and advocacy manager at Regen, has set out the key points in our response to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)’s Future Homes Standard consultation.
Regen and the Electricity Storage Network responded to The Future Homes Standard consultation from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
The Future Homes Standard
Homes built from today onwards will be homes that exist in 2050, therefore the level of energy efficiency, the heating technologies and how standards are regulated are all crucial to our decarbonisation efforts. MHCLG is currently trying to determine what these standards will be in 2025 (Future Homes Standards) and what the transition will be between now and then.
We responded with our concerns around the level of ambition that MHCLG are expressing in the consultation by not setting a zero carbon emissions standard.
Our response
We summarised the main aspects of the consultation last year and have since written and submitted our response to MHCLG.
Our response set out our concerns with the proposals made in the consultation and we have therefore set out a number of recommendations:
Our key recommendations are:
- We urge MHCLG to set a zero emissions target for the Future Homes Standard.
- We urge MHCLG to ensure that homes built before 2025 have the highest fabric standards and, if served by gas boilers in the interim, are low carbon technology ready. This will minimise the cost and disruption borne by future consumers.
- We disagree with the proposal to remove Fabric Energy Efficiency Standards. They should not be lowered or dropped from the performance metrics. These should be considered with equal importance to the other metrics proposed in the consultation.
- The building regulations stipulate the legal minimum standard to which a building must be constructed. We do not agree that a ceiling should be placed on a local authority’s ability to set standards that go beyond those set out in the Future Homes Standard.
In conclusion, we are encouraging MHCLG to raise their ambitions by developing fabric first, low carbon technology ready homes.
Regen’s work on heat and built environment
The full response can be found here but our work continues in this space. In our policy priorities for 2020 we have set out heat and energy efficiency as one of our key areas.
Aside from this work on the Future Homes Standard, Regen has also been developing our decarbonisation of heat paper as a part of the “decade to make a difference” series, which will be launched at an event on the 10 March and everyone is welcome to join.