January 2014: The Mayor has recently posted online his response to the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) Allowable Solutions (AS) consultation, released last year. Allowable Solutions are central to the achievement of the Government’s commitment to delivering zero carbon homes by 2016, and have been under discussion for several years now, with significant delays in any Ministerial decisions being made (too much to go into here – see articles here and here) . The Zero Carbon Hub have also led on much of the detailed development behind the potential measures that could be used.
The Mayor raises a number of concerns to Government over their proposals, including:
- London is less likely to benefit from them than other parts of the country, because London’s building stock and the complex logistics of working in London make it more expensive to install both retrofit and energy supply measures.
- The current proposals are likely to mean that AS in London are uncompetitive. In combination with proposals under the Housing Standards Review, there is significant risk that the well established plans in London to support the deployment of decentralised energy and heat networks through the planning system will be undermined.
- It is unlikely that district heating will be funded under AS without revisions to the proposals.The development of decentralised heat and power generation and district heating forms an integral part of London’s and other cities’ contribution to the delivery of Government’s heat strategy. It appears to be an ambition for AS that they should support district heating and it might often make sense for a developer to contribute to a district heating network if his/her future developments could in turn receive low carbon affordable heat from that network. However, except perhaps if the central fund route were the sole option, it is difficult to see how the proposed options would support district heating.
London boroughs are already making significant headway in establishing their own allowable solution mechanisms as a consequence of the Government’s delay in setting out their own policy – see details of Islington’s Carbon Offset Fund here.
See article in Building magazine also detailing the Mayor’s response.