Housing and planning minister Yvette Cooper has defended the government’s weakening of Part L of the Building Regulations to Parliament.

Cooper said: “The overall impact of the changes [to part L] is a 40% improvement in the energy efficiency of new buildings.”

She equated this to the emission savings “on about one million semi-detached homes”.

Cooper added that the government was looking into the problem of tackling existing homes.

A spokesman for the ODPM said that the 40% figure had been arrived at through the inclusion of additional regulatory changes.

He said: “In addition to the expected savings from these latest revisions, the 40% figure includes energy savings from the switch to condensing boilers earlier in this year and the energy savings from the previous revision to Part L in 2002.”

Source

Building Sustainable Design