The government is this week facing criticism from the green building industry amid fears the Department for Business Innovation and Skills' (BIS) latest regulatory review could result in additional green policies being torched.
Hundreds of building firms were left outraged last year by moves from the government to scrap the long-awaited zero carbon homes standard and axe the Green Deal energy efficiency financing scheme without introducing a replacement. However, fears are now mounting further policy changes are on the cards after the government last month launched a fresh review of house building regulation under its wide-ranging Cutting Red Tape Review.
The review was due to close tomorrow, but a BIS spokesman told BusinessGreen the deadline has been extended by two weeks to January 27th in response to the high volume of responses.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid hailed the review as the latest attempt to address what the government describes as "ineffective rules and heavy-handed regulation".
"This review will give housebuilders and smaller construction businesses a powerful voice as part of our £10bn deregulation drive," he said at the launch of the review. "Where rules are too complicated, ineffective or poorly enforced, I want to hear about it and the government will take action. Together we can cut red tape and get Britain building."
However, green building experts have expressed disquiet the review does not follow consultation best practices and simply asks interested parties to criticise regulations they do not like. The review includes no consultation document, no alternative proposals, and little guidance for participants beyond an announcement that suggests its starting point are issues raised by the Housing Implementation Task Force.
These include "roads and infrastructure rules for new housing developments; environmental requirements, particularly EU rules such as the Habitats Directive and wider EU environmental permit requirements; [and] rules that affect utilities (such as electricity, gas and water - as well as broadband infrastructure)".
John Alker, campaign and policy director at the Green Building Council (GBC), which represents around 450 building firms, said there were widespread concerns that the way the review was being conducted appeared to pre-empt its conclusions.
"Has there ever been a consultation or review that is more pre-determined?" he asked. "It's not called the 'Review of Housebuilding Regulations', it is called the Cutting Red Tape Review."
He added that the way the review was structured without any detailed consultation proposals made it difficult for those who wished to defend effective regulations to set out their case, as it was unclear which environmental regulations were being considered for the axe. "There is this clichéd view that regulation is always bad for business and the idea that any kind of level playing field can act as a stimulus appears to be too nuanced for consideration," he said.
Alker added that around 300 companies had written to the Treasury last summer to call for a re-think on the scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes Standard, but there appeared to be "messages from business the government wants to hear, and messages it doesn't".
In its submission to the review, the GBC welcomes the government's desire to keep regulation as streamlined as possible and increase rates of housebuilding. But it also expresses "serious concern" over the apparent desire to minimise or water down "environmental requirements, particularly EU rules such as the Habitats Directive and wider EU environmental permit requirements", which is described in the government's Cutting Red Tape Review announcement.
"The evidence and rationale for minimising the impact of house building on the environment has never been stronger," the letter adds. "From carbon emissions and energy use, to the use of raw materials, fresh water and production of waste, the house building sector has a major environmental impact and it is absolutely right that regulation plays a role in driving changes in industry practice... The Government must not allow its laudable efforts to solve the social problem of housing shortage to create a huge and lasting legacy of environmental damage".
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