GBRC

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.

We know we need to do something radical to reduce the contribution of our nation’s homes to the UK’s overall carbon emissions: 27% of UK emissions come from the homes that have already been built.  But what practical steps can be taken to reduce emissions? And how can we make this simple so that every home in the UK is at least properly insulated?

Last week the team here at the UK Green Building Council published a new report about the so-called ‘Pay As You Save’ scheme: a financial mechanism to encourage homeowners to refurbish their homes with low carbon measures.   Essentially the idea is that the cost of installing low carbon refurbishment measures in a home is spread out over a long period of time so that savings on a homeowner’s energy bills cover the costs of the work the done – and should leave the householder better off from day one.

Last week was a busy week for the Grand Designs Great British Refurb campaign, and a really important week for UK homes’ energy efficiency. With your fantastic support we handed in our petition to No. 10 with over 8,000 signatures, sending a clear message that we all want the government to do more to help us reduce the impact of our homes on the environment.

Also last week the government published its Low Carbon Transition Plan, setting out plans for how it will meet the ambitious targets set in the 2008 Climate Change Act – a 34% cut in emissions by 2020 leading to an 80% cut by 2050.