ROOF Blog

The Government has set out new plans to make Britain’s homes ‘greener, warmer and cheaper to run’. The strategy is aimed at cutting emissions from the UK’s homes by 29% by 2020. It will help people make smarter use of energy in homes, making it easier to take action and reduce bills. Installing some technologies, such as solid wall insulation, could see energy bills cut by £380 a year. The strategy will be implemented in a three stage plan: to insulate 6 million homes by the end of 2011; to have insulated all practical lofts and cavity walls by 2015; to have offered up to 7 million eco upgrades by 2020.

The UK industry should develop more products to help builders and property owners make the 5.5 million properties at flood risk in England and Wales more resistant and resilient to flooding, Environment Agency chairman Lord Chris Smith says. Speaking at the National Flood Forum annual conference, Lord Smith also encouraged building merchants and DIY stores to offer advice to builders and members of the public on how to make properties more resilient to floods, so that drying out and cleaning up is faster and cheaper following any flooding. A recent Environment Agency study into the devastating floods of summer 2007 found the average cost per flooded home was between £23,000 and £30,000 and a quarter of homeowners were not fully covered by insurance.

Three weeks after last month’s devastating Cumbria floods, the Environment Agency is urging owners of damaged properties to insist that insurers repair their homes and businesses to be more flood-resilient.

Properties affected by flooding are often simply returned to their previous state, meaning that similar damage is likely if flooding occurs in future.

Repairing a property that has been flooded offers a chance to minimise the damage and disruption that could be caused by any future flood.

The government has unveiled its vision of hi-tech homes with ‘smart’ meters acting as a cornerstone of a more efficient, greener electricity grid system.

British Gas and other power suppliers have been given responsibility for installing meters in each of Britain’s 26m homes by 2020, enabling them to read consumption levels remotely and end the use of estimated bills.

The gadgets would also allow homeowners to monitor their own gas and electricity usage – and production if they have solar panels or wind turbines.

However, a row over the £8.5bn outlay for smart meters threatened to overshadow the announcement with critics warning that the energy companies might pocket the benefits.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said the cost of the scheme would be dwarfed by the £14.5bn of expected savings as power companies reduce administrative costs and consumers benefit from lower bills.

More than 900,000 homes and businesses in England and Wales could be at the highest risk of flooding by 2035 without increasing investment in defences, the Environment Agency has warned.

The agency said the number of properties at the highest risk of inundation could rise by 60 per cent from current figures of 560,000, as it outlined a new five-year strategy, including plans to protect an extra 200,000 homes and businesses from flood waters.

The agency said that in the past five years, 156,000 properties had been protected against flooding.

Chief executive Paul Leinster said: ‘Less waste is going to landfill, more properties are protected against flooding, pollution incidents have halved since 2000 and there are more fish and wildlife in lakes and rivers.’

But he warned: ‘Climate change is already affecting the UK and the challenges we face as a result are only going to get tougher and more properties could be at increased flood risk.’