Buyers of brand-new homes face ￡20,000 bill to make them greener

An interesting piece of scaremongary by The Guardian which increasingly feels like The Mirror with it's blind government bashing headlines. A couple of points I'd like to challenge are, no-one who owns their own home can be forced to improve it, let alone to the extent of ￡20,000. Secondly, the idea that any government can force house builders to adopt higher energy standards quickly, is laughable. We're in the unfortunate position of needing more new homes with a limited number of companies who can provide them so, from a legislative perspective, it's the house builders who call the shots. For context look back to 2008/9 when the #economy collapsed. Many people condemned the bank bail outs but the response to house builders refusing to build new homes, that would have meant reducing prices to sell them was the help to buy scheme. This was the bailout that let house builders protect their bottom lines at public expense. Today there are even fewer of them delivering the housing we so desperately need. As we stand, no government that wants new homes built,can demand anything of them so they will improve efficiency and standards, when they're good and ready.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/23/buyers-of-brand-new-homes-face-20000-bill-to-make-them-greener

#newhomes #property #housing #architecture