黑洞社区

A department of retrofit needs to be set up to oversee a 20-year programme to make the UK鈥檚 aging housing stock more energy efficient, the government has been told.

Federation of Master Builders chief executive Brian Berry said the only way carbon emissions from heating the country鈥檚 29 million homes can be tackled is if it is co-ordinated by a single agency or department.

Speaking during a 黑洞社区 webinar on residential retrofits last week, Berry said: 鈥淚t really is beholden on the government to show leadership, real leadership, and understand the scale of the problem.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a national infrastructure project, it should be on that scale. It鈥檚 going to take decades and we need to start it now.鈥�

He added: 鈥淲e cannot afford to wait any longer if we鈥檙e going to upgrade our existing homes and the only way to do that is to have some form of agency or department, someone co-ordinating all of this to make sure it will happen.鈥�

The comments also come as the construction sector awaits the publication of the government鈥檚 heat and building strategy, which will set out how to decarbonise the UK鈥檚 built environment.

The document, which was originally promised in February this year, is expected to be published within the next few weeks before the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November.

The government is under pressure to explain how it plans to make UK homes more energy efficient so it can achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050 following the failure of the Green Homes Grant earlier this year.

The 拢1.5bn scheme, which offered homeowners vouchers covering part of the cost of energy efficiency improvements to their homes, was scrapped in March.

Just 10% of the 600,000 home upgrades the chancellor promised were carried out, with the low take-up partially blamed on a flawed accreditation scheme for installers.

Berry said the scheme was 鈥渄isappointing to give it an understatement鈥�.

He added: 鈥淲e had to promote the scheme to our members, provide an access for them to become accredited [and] only a few of my members took up the offer.鈥�

He said those who did sign up to the scheme 鈥渓ost quite a lot of money for small companies鈥� which he said has since undermined the construction sector鈥檚 confidence in investing in future government retrofit initiatives.

鈥淭his time the government has really got to get it right because otherwise builders will say 鈥榳hat is the point, we鈥檝e got huge demand in RMI, there鈥檚 a shortage of builders, we don鈥檛 need all this, we鈥檙e just going to do what we do and there won鈥檛 be that take-up鈥�.鈥�

Berry attends regular meetings with government departments to discuss retrofit strategies but said he was concerned that ministers might not adopt a 鈥渉olistic approach鈥�.

He added: 鈥淧ast performance hasn鈥檛 been very encouraging but let鈥檚 wait and see.

鈥淭he mood music on the heat and building strategy seems to be positive, I鈥檓 trying to be optimistic but the devil鈥檚 in the details.鈥�

The FMB has outlined eight key elements which the groups said would need to be adopted together for a retrofit strategy to work.

They include financial incentives, new skills qualifications, linking up with local authority-led initiatives and a compliance regime to ensure homeowners鈥� confidence is not undermined by shoddy work.

The Construction Leadership Council has proposed a retrofit programme costing 拢525bn over the next two decades, with funding split between the public and private sectors.

The FMB has said around 100,000 jobs could be created in the first four years of the programme along with savings of 拢1.4bn for the NHS and 鈥渟ubstantial鈥� savings in energy bills.