House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Code for Suatainable Homes and the Housing Standards Review - HC 192

In this report the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is urged to reconsider plans to axe a policy that has driven up home building standards and helped to create a thriving sustainable building industry in the UK. The Environmental Audit Committee criticises the Department for its decision to remove local authorities' discretion to set high standards on energy and water saving-using the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH)-in favour of a lowest-common-denominator national standard. DCLG's proposed needs test on the application of sustainability standards by local authorities also risks becoming a lawyers' charter, could curtail local choice, delay the construction of new homes and compel local authorities to incur unnecessary legal fees. DCLG also failed to take into account the latest evidence on the declining capital costs of fitting clean energy technology to homes in its Housing Standards Review, and the 2016 zero carbon homes standard has been successively watered down. The CSH is a proven policy mechanism for driving incremental improvements in sustainable home building. Lower-level CSH standards on energy use have been successfully embedded in Building Regulations over the six years since the policy was introduced. DCLG has not set out a replacement mechanism to drive sustainability in the future. The Committee recommends that DCLG: examines the latest research on the decreasing cost of clean energy technologies; maintains and refreshes the CSH as a tool for local authorities to lever in sustainability; retains CSH standards on sustainable construction materials to support green exports and green growth.