'Government must get green on housing' (From Gazette & Herald)

'Government must get green on housing'

THE Government needs to get green with its regulations on building.

That's the thrust of a new report from WWF and the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA).

With a Better Building summit to be held on October 21, the report, Building Sustainably: How to Plan and Construct New Housing for the 21st Century, calls on the Government to seize the opportunity to announce an extensive review of existing building regulations and the planning system.

They do not adequately address issues such as the environmental impacts of building materials, energy and water consumption and access to good public transport, say the authors.

"The current regulations must be overhauled, said Paul King, director of WWF's One Million Sustainable Homes Campaign.

"The Government has committed to developing sustainable homes and communities, but the current regulatory frameworks that govern where and how new homes are built are not up to the job."

It is now possible to build houses in the UK that have zero carbon dioxide emissions.

Water use is being radically reduced through innovative reuse and efficiency technologies.

New housing is being designed within communities that are affordable for both people and the environment, as well as being quality places to live.

The problem is that these examples are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to building new houses, says the report.

"The Government's Sustainable Communities Plan offers an unprecedented opportunity to build sustainable homes and communities on a large scale and raise the standards of house-building to levels far beyond what we see today," said TCPA policy officer Robert Shaw.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has already acknowledged that the current building regulations are not designed to address environmental concerns, he said.

The report claims that by simply changing the current building regulations and the planning system, all new houses could be built to the highest standards to make homes cheaper to run and have less environmental impact on the planet.

The majority of new and existing homes in the UK have significant environmental impacts.

Building Sustainably: How to Plan and Construct New Housing for the 21st Century can be obtained from www.tcpa.org.uk and www.wwf.org.uk.

Updated: 12:24 Wednesday, October 15, 2003