The Housing Forum Yorkshire and Humber Regional Conference Topical Debate - Greening the Existing Stock

14 October 2009 |

The Housing Forum's 2009/2010 series of Regional Conferences continued in Leeds on 07th October 2009. Our regular engagement with the housing industry involves monthly regional conferences across the English regions which take the temperature of member concerns. Greening the existing stock and priorities for attention was the focus of the Exeter debate.

The Guest Chair was Angela Garrard, Head of Development (Midlands & North), from Affinity Sutton Group, together with a specialist panel drawn up from regional industry experts

Angela Garrard took the chair's prerogative and quizzed delegates and how attainable is retrofitting the existing housing stock. Affinity Sutton have 50,000 homes throughout the country, in over 150 authorities. Over 50% are pre 1940. What will Greening the Existing Stock cost RSLs and residents? Will people be able to use Technology? Will they care? Has anyone in the room retrofitted their own home [one person said yes]? If a room of experts can't tackle this readily is there hope for the general population?

From this challenging perspective, the debate widened with the provider's perspective from Andy Izod. Andy stated that affordability and availability of the right technologies are the two main issues. Where do you go for sound impartial advice? How do you untangle ambiguous jargon/Greenwash when selecting products? Materials may save energy in use, but have high embodied carbon in their production.

Hannah Gibbins spoke from the perspective of regenerating 540 closely built pre 1919 terraced properties, that are generally a low E on EPC rating. The aims is to get up do a good C rating. Decided to concentrate on thermal efficiency and quality of boilers, with a focus on resident education. Is there a cost benefit to putting expensive technology in for a house worth £70,000? A resident might not see the value in upgrading their own homes yet compared to other consumer purchases.

Martin Smithurst spoke from the contractor's perspective, saying we have the oldest housing stock in the developed world. Building of new sustainable homes will only cut 5% of emissions by 2050. The UK needs to refurbish 500,000 properties a year by 2050. Are we moving quickly enough? Everyone is doing their own pilots, but the movement of the industry is not quick enough. Their needs to be clarity of leadership. The cost of installation is a barrier, as without the volume we can't drive down costs. There is the missed opportunity of Decent Homes which could have saved 25-30% of capital cost. How is government funding going to come forward in the current conditions? How can private finance be leveraged? Strong leadership, clarity and a joined up approach are needed.

The conference then debated the following issues:

A Repository for Information

  • Where does the information from all the pilot projects find a home?
    • The Existing Homes Alliance are trying to generate a central depository of good practice.
    • The Housing Forum could help members access the range of information available.

Solutions for the private stock?

  • How can the performance of existing homes change at community or individual level without regulation?
  • Could we get benefits, lower council tax, for improving existing the private stock?
  • Smart meters - people don't realise what the high energy users are within their property.

Costs and Benefits

  • 20% of energy use is down to the way we use energy in our homes.
  • Need for a suite of carrots and sticks to incentivise improvement.
  • There are grants are out there, but they are hard to understand and apply for.
  • Improvements aren't adding value to properties yet. In Australia there is evidence of significant premiums on homes where there are sustainable measures. We are in an early stage of development. At the moment the financial services industry hasn't caught up yet - don't understand about effect this should have on the Loan to Value ratio.

Scale of the Task

  • There is a lack of information on the private stock and local authorities do not have information on the energy efficiency rating of the public stock.

Passive Measures: Fabric over Fixtures

  • Sheffield example shows the need to put structural issues first - new roofs before photo-voltaics
  • Passive measures are relatively low cost, quick and simple.

The Housing Forum is grateful to the panel for their time and knowledge on this subject.

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