The Portsmouth Society - News
| News | Consuming Less in our Homes | |
| Earlier news | EcoSE is another new regional organisation. We were invited to the inaugural
event, held at the Hilton Hotel at Gatwick Airport, on 27 November to launch
the manifesto for change - for a step change in building design and construction
in the South East of England. It is to aid the change from a three-planet
society to a one-planet one. This refers to the estimate that it would
take three planets to sustain the whole world's population in the life
style at present enjoyed in the West; but we have only one. EcoSE want all developments in the SE to be to ecohomes' "very good" or "excellent" standards. These standards are based on assessment in seven categories of energy conservation; water consumption; pollution; materials; transport; ecology and land use; health and well-being. At present several institutions who commission new houses in the region are signed up to these standards: SEEDA (excellent), English Partnerships (very good), Millennium Communities (excellent), Regional Housing Strategy - for developments funded through the Housing Corporation (good with an aspiration to very good). In several of the speeches BEDZED, the pioneering nearly self-sufficient, zero energy-consuming new development near Croydon which some members of the Society went to visit, was held up as the standard to be aiming at. The government were urged to address the issues of sustainability through the planning legislation with an updated PPG1. This has already been begun successfully with the design supplements to PPG3 and to PPG6. 800,000 new homes in the SE will place a considerable demand on resources; but there is a great need to upgrade the existing 3.4 million homes particularly in respect of energy and water consumption. 'Retrofitting' of the existing housing stock is advocated including water-saving measures; 4 litre dual-flush WCs, 70 litre baths, rainwater collection systems of 150-200 litres capacity, aerating spray taps on all wash basins, water efficient white appliances, showers with flow rate of less than 4.5 litres per minute. There was a similar list of energy-saving, mainly heat-saving, measures that should be retrofitted. I raised the question of the disposal of the mountain of discarded WC cisterns, taps, baths and windows. The first talk entitled Sustainable Buildings - Why, How and When? was by Sir John Harman, Chairman of the Environment Agency. George Ferguson, President of the RIBA and designer of the proposed redevelopment here of Broad Street and the Point, spoke about redevelopment in central Bristol. Mike Gwilliam, former Director of the Civic Trust and now Director of Planning & Transport of SEERA formally launched the manifesto consisting of five issues. No.2 for example was: Promoting and encouraging the raising of construction standards for all new buildings to achieve high levels of energy and water efficiency coupled with minimisation of waste. We broke up into workshops in the afternoon. In the one that I attended we discussed the difficulties of consulting the public. There was praise for what had been achieved in Ashford. A Winchester city councillor raised the matter of the Major Development Area now being constructed south east of Waterlooville in defiance of all planning principles and in spite of many representations against it by the public. Incidentally at the early stage of the drafting of the South Hampshire Structure Plan, we, the Portsmouth Society, objected to this scheme, pointing out that it breached the County Council's own principles. Visit the EcoSE Web site at www.ecose.org.uk . RJ |