When will "climate change MITIGATION" move through building regs?

[Stinsy]

What easements on building control / planning permissions should we be pushing for to improve our homes & cut down / out the paperwork for climate mitigation within the home? (opinions please)

Desp, what strikes you as do-able if it weren't for problems with council tangles that don't make much sense from your perspective?

It's not like we are going to see a big vat reduction on anything after covid ..so that's out before anyone mentions it.

I think it is down to the GOVT to re-jig the regulations and fund the LAs so they can enforce it. The real problem is with existing housing which will be with us for a hundred years or more, and how we fund drastic improvements to them, new builds in theory are fairly eco friendly but in any case we are building them so slowly they wont have enough impact in the timeframe we need.

Also I think planning could be re-jigged so that refurb work could be designed with loads of insulation in mind. For instance, on our two storey extension and lofty we has to keep the design so similar to the original thirties style we ended up compromising on the insulation, we are well below the minimum threshold but could have done a lot better were we able to build a little closer to the boundary and raise the gable wall and have a half hipped end. There are precedents around here but we may have had to appeal to the secretary of state which probably would have burned up a year or more, we couldn't risk that.

Desp

The problem is that we have a horrifically complex set of planning/building regs that achieve very little. Don’t forget Grenfell had all the appropriate paperwork/permissions in place. The same regulations and the jobsworths who enforce them actively prevent features such as shading, insulation, heat pumps, etc..

For example if I wanted to fit EWI, that’d be declined.

[Mr Gus]

Ditto, because of render, as then it stands out differently on a street of red brick & grey brick homes, enough to get a refusal, yet there are so many plasti-metal clad metal wrap weatherproof finishes available (in use for 40 years at my local nhs hospital) that would do the job with a good layer of modern insulation in any colour you can well choose that could & would do the job on big expanses of non grenfell height domeciles, outside of the big cities that make up the majority of estate housing for decades, but grenfell fear rules apply to a greater degree, ..You can hear the quaver in local authorities voices when you mention it.

Petrol is damned flammable & far more prone to ignition than an insulation clad wall, the car is full of materials that make them billow dark toxic smoke, yet no-one is told they cannot park within 20 ft of a house due to fire hazard potential.