GBRC

Here's what Peter Wellock, MyBuilder community manager, has to say about the GBR, the Green Deal and on how to find the right builders to eco-refurb your house

The election is providing an interesting backdrop to our week at Grand Designs Live. The Great British Refurb campaign is here amongst the solar panels and sliding door exhibits to get thousands of people to support us in lobbying the new government on policies to support a mass low carbon retrofit of UK's homes.

One of the first questions I was asked from a couple who came over to the stand was- 'how can you be planning to lobby a government when you don't know who it's going to be yet?' Fair question. There are lots we don’t know and even after May 6th it will be a few weeks till we know exactly what we're dealing with but there's one opportunity we have no matter what happens with the election.

Whether the new government's motivation is reducing householders bills, protecting against expected energy price rises, meeting the UK's climate change targets or stimulating the UK's economy, kicking off a mass homes retrofit programme should be high on the list of anyone in their first year in office. There's no other big way of tackling climate change that is likely to be as popular with voters, that requires no new technological inventions and can be well underway within the first phase of a new government. In essence how this plays out will tell you how serious the new government is about climate change- if they don't seize the opportunity with a mass homes retrofit then I, for one, will be pretty concerned about how they're going to manage to make the UK a low carbon economy. However if our new government does launch a great british refurb plan in the first year they may find the thousands of people we're speaking to this week ready to take part.

It’s been a busy few days for the Grand Designs Great British Refurb Campaign.  We’ve been rushed off our feet.  First, there was the Manchester House refurbishment followed by Kevin McCloud appearing at the Tory Conference to tell them how important a programme of eco-refurbishment is for the UK’s existing house stock.  This was accompanied by the Great British Refurb Campaign’s very own Simon McWhirter appearing on the big screen as part of the Manchester House video

Then it was down to Birmingham and Grand Designs Live. On Friday afternoon Kevin appeared on stage with Colin Butfield from WWF and Marian Spain from the Energy Saving Trust as part of the Big Debate.  Both they and the audience were able to quiz Greg Clark MP, Conservative spokesperson for Energy and Climate Change (we quizzed Ed Miliband in London earlier this year). It was a lively debate with huge interest from the audience. A well informed bunch who were not going to let Greg Clark off the hook easily as they questioned him on exactly what the Tory policy was and where, in their opinion, its weaknesses lie.

It’s not long until the crunch climate talks in Copenhagen.  And with this week’s gathering at the UN, followed by the G20 meeting in Pitsburg, climate change dominates both the media and political agenda; for the time being at least.  Unfortunately a lot of this still focuses on talking and what is being offered up is often too vague and lacking in targets for us to make any meaningful assessment as to whether it will really be enough.

Many of the commentators and politicians talk about this being a make or break time.  Whether they back up their rhetoric with action is a mute point.  But with 27 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions coming from our homes we, as homeowners, are in an ideal position to show them the way.  That is why the Grand Designs Great British Refurb Campaign has redesigned and relaunched our website.