Enquiry into Existing builDings and climate change SUBMITTED BY UTTLESFORD DISTRICT COUNCIL

 

On behalf of Uttlesford District Council, here is our evidence for your enquiry. We believe that there are a number of new approaches that can be taken to address the CO₂ emissions of existing housing:

- Give stamp duty relief to householders who install energy saving measures within one year of taking ownership of a property. This can be linked to EPC recommendations.

- Make low-interest 'green' mortgages or loans available to cover the cost of relatively expensive energy efficiency projects such as insulating solid walled, historic or other hard to treat housing, or installing solar water heating.

- Move away from a grants-based market transformation approach for microgeneration and instead introduce an enhanced feed-in tariff for demand side renewable electricity installations. This has proven to be a very successful approach in Germany at no perceptable cost to energy consumers.

- Develop CERT further to reconcile the energy suppliers' business of selling energy, their obligation to improve energy efficiency and their desire to grow - set caps on the total amount of energy they can sell. This will in effect transform their business into energy services companies and will greatly increase their motivation to improve energy efficiency as this will then be the principal means by which they can grow their business.

Finally, we recommend that the Government implement a policy of consequential improvement similar to that which was dropped from the Part L revisions to the building regulations in 2006. This was going to require energy efficiency measures to be carried out in dwellings whenever building works over a certain value were carried out, but was left out at the last minute.

However, our council has proven that consequential improvement is an effective way to reduce the carbon emissions of existing housing. We implemented a form of consequential improvement through our local planning policies, requiring cost effective energy efficiency measures to be carried out in an existing dwellings when they are extended. A full explanation is contained in the attached case study we have recently developed in conjunction with Energy Saving Trust, but in short, it works, increasing the uptake of simple, effective energy saving measures, benefiting householders and the environment alike. Having implemented this policy for over a year we have encountered no significant resistance and there have been no appeals against it. Uttlesford District Council was highly commended in the 2006 National Energy Efficiency Awards for this initiative.

To conclude, in light of our experience, we recommend that the Government reconsider implementing consequential improvement nationally through the building regulations or the planning system. I am more than happy to discuss this further with the Select Committee.

 

Energy Efficiency Surveyor

21 September 2007