Loophole in Future Homes Standard slammed by industry body

Net zero group LETI has slammed the introduction of a loophole that would allow developers to opt out of Part L performance requirements and has called on built environment professionals to respond to the government consultation before 6 March.  

Introduced in the Future Homes and Building Standard consultation, the clause would allow CO2 emission rates to be “relaxed or dispensed with” if the local authority or Building Safety Regulator concludes those standards are “unreasonable in the circumstances”.

LETI is urging built environment professionals to respond to the government consultation and insist the loophole is closed.

“Building regulations should be the minimum standard across the country without exception,” LETI submitted in its response to the consultation. “If enabled, these exceptions are likely to affect the poorest areas of the country.” 

“The draft guidance proposes allowing Local Authorities to permit schemes to opt-out of Part L compliance in ‘exceptional circumstances’, however there is no definition of what those circumstances might be,” says Michela Ravaglia of LETI. “We fear that local authorities, desperate for inward investment, might be understandably tempted to use this provision.

“One might also expect developers to push the definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ through both the Planning Appeals process and the Courts. If Part L is waived, might we be constructing buildings to lower standards than today?” Ravaglia adds.

Chris Brown, Managing Director of Climatise and Director of Future Fit Homes, says LETI is “spot on” for raising alarm over the opt-out clause.

The Part L loophole discovered by LETI is a shocking discovery with the Future Standard opening the possibility of homes built with a lower than minimum standard of insulation. But the Standard has already come under fierce criticism for failing to improve on energy efficiency.

The UK Green Building Council accused the government of a lack of ambition: “This can’t genuinely be described as a ‘future’ standard. Having already shattered industry confidence with repeated green rollbacks, the government has opted for the least ambitious option that would deliver ‘future’ homes from 2025 at a lower standard than many homes already built today,” said Simon McWhirter, Deputy Chief Executive at UKGBC.

This lack of improvement will cost citizens more in fuel bills, LETI warns: “We have seen, through the recent energy crisis, how the United Kingdom’s failure to move quickly enough to renewable technologies has contributed to our energy bills rising far more than our peer nations,” says Ravaglia.

“There is a finite amount of renewable energy in the UK that is cost effective to construct, and a finite carbon budget we need to meet, as outlined by the CCC. If new buildings use more energy, then more retrofit will need to be undertaken to balance this out. Retrofit is typically 5 times more expensive than the integration of energy efficiency measures, such as fabric-first approach, into new build.”

“If the proposals are enacted in their current state, we will be creating a generation of inefficient buildings that are not creating the resilient, equitable country that we deserve.”

LETI believes the standard will make it difficult to achieve net zero. However on this point, Brown disagrees: “With a decarbonised grid, it will.” 

There is widespread dismay that the standard does not address embodied or whole-life carbon: “I am most concerned about the lack of regulation of upfront carbon in the standard and the lack of discussion of it in the climate positive responses,” says Brown. “Insulation isn’t free of climate damage, particularly the oil-based materials.” 

Pointing out several areas where the Standard falls short, Ravagli bemoans the lack of a ‘Part Z’ standard for embodied carbon, “So that we can ensure that all new buildings are taking a holistic approach.”

The government consultation covers changes to Part 6, Part L and Part F of the Building Regulations for dwellings and non-domestic buildings and seeks evidence on Part O, which covers overheating. This includes whether Part O should apply when there is a material change of use; At the moment, homes created from offices or other conversions do not have to meet standards for overheating.

LETI has advised that, given office conversions deliver a significant number of new homes per year, residents of converted homes “should access the same level of protection against overheating than any other resident.” 

The working group has also called for the use of the EUI metric – Energy Use Intensity, an annual measure of the total energy consumed in a building expressed in kWh/m2.yr – to prevent greenwashing. “The adoption of an absolute energy performance metric, the EUI, instead of relative carbon emission metric, Part L and its % reduction metric, will incentivise better design outcomes and limit the performance gap,” says Ravaglia. 

“As the electricity grid decarbonises, and as we put ever greater demands upon it through the phasing out of fossil fuel technologies, it becomes important to ensure that our new building stock minimises energy demands,” says Ravaglia. “Focusing solely on carbon emissions can enable a sleight-of-hand through which energy inefficient buildings appear to be sustainable. The adoption of EUI is furthermore supported by technical evidence produced by the industry.” 

LETI is a voluntary network of over 1,000 built environment professionals working together towards a net zero carbon built environment by 2030. The group has produced a document with suggested responses to 18 key questions in the consultation, encouraging those who respond to use their own words. The government consultation closes at 11:59pm on 6 March.