Over 100 property developers – including BNP Paribas Real Estate and Clarion Housing Group – have written to prime minister Rishi Sunak expressing their “serious concern” over green policy delays.
The open letter stated: “This move is a blow to green investment and sustainable businesses, cutting carbon emissions and particularly to the high proportion of renters in fuel poverty with huge energy bills in cold, damp, un-insulated homes.
“We urge you to reconsider and to urgently put in place the investment and policies to make upgrading Britain’s homes affordable,” it added.
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The letter nods to the Climate Change Committee stating industries outside of the energy sector needs to quadruple the pace of climate action, adding the property industry has been “working hard to gear up for that acceleration.”
“To bring forward the much-needed big financial investments, to recruit and train hundreds of thousands of people and to bring the public along with us on this journey we need confidence in long-term active policy support from government,” the property firms stated.
The firms urge Sunak to “bring forward a comprehensive national strategy to retrofit our homes and buildings including much higher sustained government investment and market drivers to stimulate private investment as well as regulation. This would pay dividends to the treasury in tax returns.”
They also call for a new “future homes and building standard”. This was supposed to be in consultation by now, but a government spokesperson told the Guardian the aim was now to publish a consultation by the end of this year.
