HBF sets out “shortest and most effective route” to achieving higher sustainability standards
Speaking today alongside the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Rt Hon Ruth Kelly MP, during the announcement of a new package of measures to reduce carbon emissions in homes, HBF Executive Chairman, Stewart Baseley, said:
”We welcome the challenge made by the Chancellor last week to build all new homes to carbon-zero standards within ten years, and we look forward to examining closely the detail of this package of measures. Higher standards will be achieved most effectively through a framework in which Government sets clear objectives, industry is given the space to deliver and consumers are on board.”
Acknowledging “the role that the industry can and must play in delivering a more sustainable environmental future for this country”, Stewart Baseley outlined the key parts of the framework that would provide “the shortest and most effective route” to delivering higher standards:
All stakeholders need to be involved - from regulators to suppliers, NGOs to utility companies. Home builders alone cannot deliver carbon-zero homes.
Targets need to be expressed as clearly and simply as possible – everyone needs to agree what we are measuring so that we can understand what success is. This includes avoiding a multitude of different local authority targets.
Government needs to stand back – allowing industry the space to do what it does best – change, adapt and innovate. The Government must avoid the temptation to tinker, to interfere, to intervene unnecessarily. This also means resisting too many interim targets which can deviate from the achievement of longer-term goals.
Customers need to be on side - changes and innovations need to be practical and desirable.
On 9 January, the HBF will be holding an environmental roundtable summit with key stakeholders to begin determining the detail so that the right results can be delivered for all stakeholders. Yvette Cooper MP, the Minister for Housing and Planning, will join Stewart Baseley in co-chairing the event.
Notes for Editors
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal trade federation for private sector home builders and voice of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF’s 300 member firms account for over 80% of all new homes built in England and Wales in any one year, and include companies of all sizes, ranging from multi-national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies: www.hbf.co.uk
Ruth Kelly outlined the Government’s proposals at an event hosted by WWF at The Building Centre in central London on Wednesday 13 December 2006.
The extent of Britain’s housing undersupply:
The rate of household formation is set to increase by 23% over the next twenty years. If housing supply remains at 2005 levels, there will be a shortage of 50,000 homes each year across England (ODPM statistical release, household projection figures, 14 March 2006)
Accessibility to the housing ladder is 300% worse in 2006 than in 1996 (RICS Accessibility Index, 24 August 2006).
More than a third of all working households under 40 cannot now afford to buy a home even at the low end of the housing market. In the South of England, the situation is even worse, with half of all working households under 40 in this position (Joseph Rowntree Foundation research, 21 September 2006)
Seven out of ten of today’s ten year olds will not be able to afford to buy their own homes if current rates of homebuilding are continued (ODPM figures, 10 October 2005)
For media information, please contact:
Toby Orr
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toby.orr@portlandpr.co.uk