Zero-carbon homes of zero interest

The Times has learnt that only 15 houses qualified in the first year of a £15 million project to waive stamp duty on the building of hundreds of zero-carbon homes. Critics of the scheme said it failed because the government’s specifications for a zero-carbon home are not practical and ‘too restrictive’, and have questioned the government’s plans that all new homes should be constructed to a zero-carbon standard by 2016. Opponents have said that it would be cheaper and better to subsidise improvements to the air-tightness of existing buildings, but a Treasury spokesperson said that the stamp duty relief has always expected to be picked up in small numbers in the first few years.