Government U-turn on Part L provokes industry fury

Industry figures have expressed shock at the decision of the new housing minister to drop plans to force homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes when doing other building works.

The proposals were contained in the draft consultation on the 2010 version of Part L of the Building Regulations but were dropped at the last minute by housing minister John Healy from the final consultation.

The draft, published last week, proposed that homeowners spend 10% of their budget for an extension on “consequential improvements” to upgrade the energy efficiency of the rest of the property.

The decision is the second time consequential improvements have been dropped; in 2006, then housing minister Yvette Cooper decided to remove them from that year’s revisions to Part L.

David Strong, chief executive of sustainability consultancy Inbuilt, said the decision “beggared belief” after the government had committed itself to reduce carbon emissions 80%.

He said: “They’ve decided not to consult on the single most important measure that could help them do this. I think the reason they have dropped it is we are leading up to an election and the question is: would it pass the Daily Mail test?”

Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, added that a European directive was due out at the end of this year that was likely to make consequential improvements compulsory for all buildings.

He said: “All the MEPs have backed this, except Ukip. I can only assume Ukip calls the shots at the communities department.”

John Tebbit, industry affairs director at the Construction Products Association said he suspected the government was happy to let the EU “take the rap” for the measure.