To coincide with the Delivering Sustainable Communities Summit, the House Builders Federation (HBF) has launched New Homes Week in association with the New Homes Marketing Board. The event will take place from 7 to 13 March 2005 and responds to a number of government initiatives raised at the summit.
New Homes Week (NHW) will highlight the housebuilding industrys commitment to delivering the governments sustainability agenda as well as promoting the environmental and sustainability advantages of buying a new home.
Prime minister Tony Blair told the summit: Urban regeneration will happen only when the right partners come together and decide they can do it together.
The industry has shown that it can exceed the governments sustainability target. The industry already builds 67% of new homes on brownfield sites, well above the government's target for 2008 of just 60%.
HBF's chief executive Rob Ashmead says: The industry is keen to work with new and different partners to achieve the desired sustainable regeneration programme. Our initiative, New Homes Week, is the industrys response to the challenges laid down by the prime minister and deputy prime minister at the Delivering Sustainable Communities Summit.
The week will focus on some of the benefits of the new homes industry, including its record on energy efficiency, the training and recruitment of apprentices, improvements in design quality and environmental practices, brownfield regeneration, as well as the contribution the industry makes to communities by planning gain contributions.
Did you also know....
Britains green belt isnt disappearing under concrete. It is actually expanding by 30,000 acres a year
National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty cover almost a quarter of the country
The number of people living alone is set to grow by 2.7 million in the next 20 years
Fewer new homes are being built annually than at any time since the second world war. Excluding the war years, fewer new homes were built in 2004 than at any time since 1924
New homes dont cause flooding. They can help prevent flooding and save water by using Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems and rainwater harvest systems
The average brand new home is between four to eight times more energy efficient than its Victorian counterpart
Anti-development campaigners often say once land is built on it has gone forever. If thats true, what is brownfield?