News article 31/10/2012

(Issued 31 October 2012) 
 

Home building industry body Homes for Scotland today urged the Scottish Government to explore more effective and cost-efficient alternative solutions to meeting ambitious climate change and fuel poverty targets before implementing proposed changes to Building Standards.

The call came at the organisation’s first major conference in Edinburgh which was addressed by Housing Minister Margaret Burgess and brought together 100 representatives from across all sectors involved in housing delivery to debate the cost, sustainability and supply challenges surrounding the low carbon agenda.

With today’s new homes already 70% more energy efficient than 1990 levels and currently built to some of the highest technical standards in Europe, Chief Executive Philip Hogg, highlighted that further increases in this regard would result in only marginal improvements when the focus of targets should be on upgrading existent inefficient homes with a far greater benefit to Scotland’s carbon footprint and assisting households living in fuel poverty.

“We fully support the Scottish Government’s ambitions to address the ongoing challenges of the green agenda but it is important to consider the cost implications of such measures on both builders and buyers given the climate of continuing economic uncertainty and the fact that total housing production is now at its lowest level since the Second World War.

“Indeed, the importance of exploring other strategies which may offer greater cost efficiency and more effective solutions was highlighted only last week by WWF which detailed the scale of the funding challenge in relation to climate change and fuel poverty targets at £4.6bn and £6.3bn respectively.

“Retrofitting existing housing stock as a priority would allow for greater reduction of carbon per pound spent without further impacting a fragile industry’s ability to deliver the warm, sustainable homes needed across all tenures throughout the country.”