 15th October 2007
Stroud District Green Party has made a submission to the Government's
consultation on Housing (i) which closes today. The Government has made
bold claims about its intentions to make housing more affordable and
more sustainable. However its unwillingness to push developers on
standards means we are failing to bring CO2 emissions down fast enough.
Martin Whiteside, the Green party's Parliamentary candidate in Stroud comments: "The Government could insist that all housing be built with adequate insulation, water conservation, solar water heating and solar panels as standard features. Instead, it plans to wait until 2016 to build housing of reasonable quality. It is shocking that the Government's own Building Research Establishment says 4 out of every 10 new homes do not meet existing building standards. These failures mean we are failing to tackle climate change fast enough."
Martin Whiteside said: "However the Green Party are more concerned about the quality of the existing 21 million homes in the UK. If improved by better energy and water conservation and more use of spaces like lofts, then more people can be housed in better conditions. But the Government's Housing Green Paper places far too much emphasis on new homes rather than existing ones, as if this was the only way to meet actual housing demand."
Martin Whiteside added: "The failure to build more Social housing has led to rising inequalities and dire circumstances for an increasing number of families. As a priority Councils urgently need to be able to build Social housing to meet the needs in their area."
Notes:
(i) The final version of the Green party's submission re 'Homes for the Future: more affordable, more sustainable' will be available soon on the website: a draft version is currently available here
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