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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/04/britains-decrepit-homes-three-big-problems-green-policy-fix-retrofitting>
"In my last rental home, there was a mysterious hole in the external wall of
our living room. It was the size of a 50p coin, and you could see right through
it to the pub opposite our house. No one knew how it got there, but it had its
uses: I learned to gauge the outside temperature by holding my hand up to it.
The hole soon symbolised the litany of problems our private landlord never
cared to deal with, as well as our eye-watering energy bills. On cold mornings,
I wondered if the seats in the Range Rover he drove were heated.
Policies for housing, renting and green renewal are interconnected. On average,
heating homes that are drafty adds hundreds of pounds a year to people’s bills.
It also causes tonnes of environmental pollution: in 2021, warming the UK’s 28m
homes accounted for almost 20% of all its greenhouse gas emissions. Considering
that 80% of buildings standing in 2050 have already been built and we have some
of the oldest and leakiest housing stock in western Europe, these homes must be
retrofitted and insulated.
Retrofitting is not a sexy policy by any means, but it is smart and
cost-efficient, and can tackle three major issues: the cost of living, the
green transition and housing rights. Boris Johnson’s green homes grant formed a
key part of his “green industrial revolution”. However, when the scheme ended
after only six months in 2021, it was deemed a failure, having only upgraded
about 47,500 homes out of the 600,000 planned. The Tories also proposed
improving the minimum energy efficiency required of new homes, yet this too was
scrapped, and is nowhere to be found in their election manifesto.
What is being promised? The Greens have been the most ambitious, promising to
invest £29bn over the next five years to insulate homes. The Lib Dems have
promised a plan of free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households and
incentives for everyone else, with a central role for local authorities. The
Tories, meanwhile, pledge £6bn over the next three years to warm about a
million homes, and want to introduce an energy efficiency voucher scheme to
support the installation of energy efficiency measures. Given their shocking
track record, even this meagre offer seems improbable.
Labour – the party most likely to win the election – offers only a fraction
more for homeowners. The £6.6bn promise to retrofit 5m homes is only up to
about 20% of what’s needed to get all homes to an even mildly energy-efficient
level (a grade C on the energy efficiency rating scale, which ranges from A to
F). The average home in the country, including mine, falls below the C
standard.
In a positive development for renters, Labour has pledged to bring private
rental homes up to standard by 2030. However, the lack of detailed plans on
what that standard is, and Labour’s recent history of policy reversals, make it
difficult to gauge the feasibility of this commitment. How would such changes
play out for landlords, who have enjoyed considerable influence in previous
governments? How would Labour also ensure that insulation costs are not passed
on to renters in the form of increasing rents?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
