ROOF Blog

An eco-village in South Gloucestershire, which has been billed as England’s first large scale zero carbon development, has been given full planning permission. Hanham Hall, a development between Barratt Developments and the Homes and Communities Agency will have 195 zero-carbon homes built to the highest level 6 standards, and will be run day to day by a community owned and run trust.

A zero carbon eco-house has been built based on design from the Middle Ages. The framework uses timbrel vaulting, a medieval technique from 14th century Spain, that creates a lightweight curved roof which retains heat. The roof has been covered with earth and plants, to maintain the inside temperature. Modern technologies, such as solar panels and triple glazing complete the design. The house comes at a price, though – it took a year to build and cost the owner £800,000.

Meanwhile a petition calling for new eco-standards to be applied across the house building industry has been given to 10 Downing Street. The petition was organised by the National Housing Federation and has the backing of 200 housing associations from across the country and demands private developers are compelled to build new homes to the same tough environmental standards as the social housing sector.

Up to seven million homes in the UK will be offered a complete eco-makeover in a scheme to cut a third of greenhouse gas emissions from households by 2020 and slash fuel bills. Householders would also be encouraged to install small-scale renewable and low-carbon hearing systems such as solar panels and wood-burning boilers. Critics say that the targets will only be met if the insulation was good enough, the financial incentives big enough, and if people on low incomes had the work paid for to tackle fuel poverty. An announcement is expected in the next couple of days.

A council has announced plans to build social housing made from straw bales. North Kesteven council in Lincolnshire believes the homes will tackle the problem of affordable housing in the area. The three-bedroom, semi-detached properties will cost £110,000 each. The council hopes the houses will set a ‘leading example to developers, housing associations and other councils throughout the country’.

The Committee on Climate Change has called for a cut of more than a third in greenhouse gases compared with 1990 levels by 2020. The committee said there was a very strong case to adopt a tougher target of an 80 per cent cut against 1990 levels rather than a 60 per cent cut recommended in the 2003 Energy White Paper because evidence showed more radical action was needed. Nuclear, low carbon and renewable energy technologies should all be expanded the committee’s report said, and Lord Adair, chair of the committee added: ‘The reductions required can be achieved at a very low cost to out economy; the cost of not achieving the reductions will be far greater’.

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.