Fair play

The document retains many commendable initiatives from the earlier consultation, including mandatory pressure testing of buildings and a new method of demonstrating a design’s compliance with the regulations based on target CO2 emissions.

There are also some glaring omissions, the most notable being the requirement making energy efficiency improvements mandatory to existing homes where a new extension is being built. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that, by freeing potential voters of this fairly onerous requirement, the Government has permitted the unnecessary release of an additional 2.25 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere by 2010.

Omissions aside, the real issue is not so much with the document’s content – there has been plenty of opportunity to contribute to that – but with the Government’s cavalier treatment of the industry by failing to publish the revised document within its stated timetable.

As the ODPM is quick to point out, this review is actually two years earlier than was originally promised. But this has only been possible because the industry has, generally, worked together to agree how this can be achieved. When the Prime Minister launched the Government’s new energy strategy in February 2003, he stated that the new regulations would come into force during 2005. But political shenanigans between government departments led the ODPM to sit on the document over summer delaying its publication.

This was not fair on industry. The delay put designers and consultants in the impossible position of trying to second-guess both the final document’s contents and also the date on which they would be implemented. It has also placed an unnecessary burden on product manufacturers, who may have invested in new products based on the Government’s stated timetable.

The Government has already made it known that to achieve a step change in energy usage, it will require industry support on future amendments to Part L. If so, what is really needed is a step change in the Government’s attitude.