LETTER: Target failure is national disgrace

‘There are so many examples worldwide of carbon neutral housing developments that are a vision of the future.’

You will see from below our government has dropped their carbon neutral policy. For years our government has had a policy that in 2016 all new homes would be ‘Zero Carbon’.

In the summer of 2015 the government announced that they would no longer proceed with on-site efficiency or a ‘Zero Carbon’ policy. I understand that there is another new policy and ‘Zero Carbon’ has been changed to nearly ‘Zero Energy’.

What this means I have no idea as unless a datum is set there is no level for the industry to work to.

You would think when you create a policy, consultation and investigation would take place to make sure it can be implemented before it is published.

The ‘Zero Carbon’ policy has been around for years and was scheduled to be implemented this year. To cancel the ‘Zero Carbon’ policy after all this time and in my view it has been a waste of time, money and where the country and the environment will not now benefit.

I started writing to the government some while ago asking why solar panels have not been fitted on the thousands of new homes being built with this benefit.

This benefit is a tried and tested method of reducing carbon, reducing household bills and use of energy at its point of generation together with many other benefits.

The answer I received was that they could not place too many regulation demands on house builders. This is a pretty poor excuse and the demands of the country should be put first. We already have building regulations and many other regulations imposed upon the construction industry which they have to comply with and it would be a simple matter to add another important section.

You would think that the government does not understand that we have a global warming problem and environmental problem and that it is highly likely that we will not meet the set energy reduction targets which is in my opinion a national disgrace.

The introduction of solar panels would certainly help greatly these matters.

When is the government and the Department of Energy going to do something sensible on these matters?

T.C. EDWARDS

Depot Road, Horsham

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