Brown's agenda: Housing

ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the challenges facing Gordon Brown in terms of housing and the wider construction industry.

 

Stakeholder Response: The Construction Products Association

To send a comment to the Construction Products Association, click

Simon Storer, External Affairs Director, said: "The construction products sector has an annual turnover of £40 billion, and has a key role to play in the economic success of this country; in delivering infrastructure such as transport, schools, hospitals and housing without which economic prosperity cannot be achieved.

"Construction needs a strong and effective department in Whitehall that understands the challenges and opportunities facing industry and business in the UK. 

"It is vital that in reaching policy decisions the impact on business is fully understood, and that these views are represented effectively in discussions across Whitehall.
 
"We are optimistic that the new Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Department will fulfill this role effectively, and look forward to working with John Hutton, the new Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise, to achieve these goals."

 

Stakeholder Response:The NHBC

To send a comment to the NHBC, click

NHBC said: "One of the most important challenges of the the Brown premiership will be to work with the housing industry to deliver zero carbon homes by 2016.

"This objective presents both a challenge and an opportunity to the industry and NHBC is ideally placed to represent the views and concerns of both the industry and the consumer.

"NHBC has specialist understanding of, and involvement in, the technical aspects of house building, as well as unique knowledge of consumer protection issues through our Buildmark warranty.

"NHBC supports this objective but believes that such an ambitious target brings with it a certain amount of risk, particularly for consumers.

"We believe that a sensible and evidence-based approach must be employed to ensure that the quality of new homes is not compromised.

"This would be damaging for consumer confidence and, as examples from British Columbia show, potentially disastrous for the house building industry."

 NHBC's key policies:

1. Consumer protection and quality guarantees

"Consumer protection must be placed at the forefront of technological advances. We strongly believe that consumers must not be exposed to unnecessary risks and used to trial zero-carbon technologies and systems that have not undergone thorough testing and accreditation.

"There is currently a dearth of tested and certificated microgeneration technologies and systems.

"Asking consumers to pay for and maintain products and systems that are not reliable or fail to deliver the claimed benefits is inappropriate and could have damaging repercussions.

"There are also important lessons for us to learn from the past and from around the world.

"In British Columbia up to 10,000 new homes were affected by water penetration, rotting and eventual failure of inadequately designed and constructed timber frame housing systems.

"This is the equivalent of a market roughly the size of Scotland and the total cost to the British Columbia economy was between two and five billion Canadian dollars.

"The British Colombian warranty programme failed, many home buyers faced considerable hardship and the house building industry was seriously affected for a number of years.

"Similar failures experienced in New Zealand and the United States illustrate that change must be well thought through, well managed, and the risks identified and eliminated to avoid causing great distress and cost to home buyers. "

2. Delivering zero-carbon homes through building regulations not the planning system

"NHBC strongly believes that the most appropriate way to deliver zero-carbon is through building regulations not through the planning system.

"Currently local authorities are competing with each other to set tougher environmental standards and this is already producing uncertainty for house builders who have to deal with local targets and standards.

"It also frustrates the economies of scale that are essential in reducing the cost of new technologies and causes confusion for builders which increases the potential for defects to occur.

"We believe that the planning system should complement the expertise of building control professionals, by encouraging the adoption of spatial planning policies that will allow designers to consider a range of options to meet energy and environmental targets laid out in Building Regulations."

3. An evidence-based approach: developing solutions through independent research

"As outlined above, we firmly believe that the practicalities of meeting the zero-carbon target must be underpinned by rigorous independent research. This will guarantee quality and allow innovative construction solutions to be developed which the industry, and consumers, can have confidence in.

"NHBC is working with industry to make this happen. In 2005 we set up the NHBC Foundation - an independent research institution - in partnership with the BRE. The Foundation is already delivering a series of research findings of particular relevance to sustainability and the zero-carbon agenda.

"We are currently carrying out detailed research through the Foundation into consumer attitudes and perceptions of new technologies with a view to defining potential barriers and informing the approach of Government and industry.

"This will secure consumer confidence and buy-in, and determine current consumer views, expectations and concerns around microgeneration.

"Following on from the success of the Foundation, in December last year, we founded the National Centre for Excellence in Housing.

"The Centre, also independent, arose from considerable interest and support for a body with a wider function and a significantly wider remit.

"The Centre is focusing on enabling and inspiring excellence and improved standards in new and existing housing to help the Government achieve its policy objectives and to rise to the challenge of the zero carbon agenda"