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Published on: 1/29/2008
Last Visited: 1/29/2008
With expansion planned in areas such as the London to Stansted and Cambridge corridor, Milton Keynes, the Thames Gateway, Ashford, and the South Midlands, the development could be a "marvellous opportunity" to tackle climate change, University College London's Jo Williams said.
But the top environmental standards for sustainable homes must be made compulsory for all new houses, she said.
There also needs to be investment in developing the technology and infrastructure to ensure that all new homes could become zero-carbon, a target which the Government aims to reach by 2016.
In a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Dr Williams said the environmental performance standards set by the Government were not strong enough.
The Code for Sustainable Homes aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and introduce greater energy and water efficiency, recycling facilities, sustainable building materials and waste and ecological considerations.
But while publicly-funded homes must currently meet the three-star grade, compared with the top six-star rating for the most zero-carbon homes with state of the art technology, the code is voluntary for private builds.
Working up from low environmental targets to improved levels over time was unlikely to drive the delivery of "green" or zero-carbon homes, said Dr Williams, of UCL's Bartlett School of Planning.
With the most ambitious housing growth planned since the 1960s, she said it was estimated the new housing could generate 5.7 million tonnes of CO2 and 1.8 million tonnes of waste and use 9.8 million tonnes of construction materials.
New households living in the growth regions could generate 9.9 million tonnes of CO2, 3 million tonnes of waste and consumer 29 billion litres of water each year, she said.
There is a need to introduce tougher standards and more efficient, cost-effective and reliable technology - along with expertise in the building sector - if the ecological footprint of the new homes is to be reduced.
"The housing growth programme planned for England and Wales could provide a marvellous opportunity to tackle climate change if approached differently, but currently appears set to be an environmental disaster," Dr Williams said.
"The housing programme provides Government with an excellent opportunity to move towards its carbon reduction targets, but to do so will require that higher performance standards become mandatory for all new housing.
"The Government needs to address this urgently and provide investment to ensure that environmentally sustainable housing does not come at the price of exacerbating the housing shortage."
Dr Williams added: "Contrary to popular belief cost is not the key barrier to developing housing to higher environment standards.
"Insufficient regulatory standards, technological, infrastructural and knowledge capacity are the key barriers to overcome."
She also said that interviews with residents and developers in existing properties found maintenance of "green" technology often proved difficult, while some homeowners removed equipment and replaced it with low-performance alternatives to match their colour schemes.