CODE FOR SUSTAINABLE HOMES: ONE STEP FORWARD...

14 March 2006

The Construction Products Association welcomes the announcement the Government has made to increase environmental standards in house building. Responding to the Government’s consultation document on the Code for Sustainable Homes, the Association supports the need for a continuing improvement in environmental standards, but believes that, if the Government is serious, it will have to greatly improve the mechanism by which all stakeholder views are considered.

Michael Ankers, Chief Executive of the Construction Products Association said: ‘There are three key issues that need to be addressed if the Code is to meet the objectives that have been set:

• The Code must be the single unifying standard for assessing the sustainability of housing in the future, and one to which all providers and purchasers sign up. If we have other standards trying to assess the same issues, the impact will be dissipated and the industry and home owners will be confused.
• The measures in the Code must complement and build on existing building and other regulations; set a long term framework; and not conflict with these by establishing parallel performance measures.
• There must be buy-in from the private house builders, so that all new housing in future is built to the higher standards set by the Code.’

In support of this last point, the Association included a proposal in its recent Budget submission to the Chancellor that purchasers of new private sector housing, built in accordance with the Code, should benefit from a reduction in their Council Tax for the first three years.

Looking to the future, Ankers urges the Government to extend certain aspects of the Code to cover the existing housing stock ‘That is where the really big wins are in terms of energy and water efficiency’.

However, a major disappointment for the Association is that the Government pre-empted the conclusions of the consultation exercise by announcing changes it intended to make to the draft Code, before all responses had been considered. Ankers’ view is ‘This is tantamount to making policy decisions on the hoof when what is really needed is careful technical consideration of all the issues. If sustainable housing is to be the rule rather than the exception, there has to be a sustained programme of investment in skills and training as well as production capacity, and this will only happen if there is confidence that the Government is committed to develop and stick to, a long term framework.’