Bringing gas boiler ban forward to 2023 ‘not achievable’, say housing associations
Housing associations have warned against calls to bring the Future Homes Standard forward to 2023, arguing that the target “would not be achievable for everyone” and that the “infrastructure isn’t there” to support it.
Housing associations figures told the Labour Conference fringe that the “infrastructure isn't there” to bring the Future Homes Standard forward by two years #UKhousingGeeta Nanda, chair of the G15 group of housing associations, told a Labour Party Conference fringe session yesterday that the current target for the Future Homes Standard, which will end the use of gas boilers in new homes in 2025, is already “quite an ambitious target”.
In response to a question over whether she believed the standard should be brought forward by two years, she said: “We should stick to being able to achieve things. My worry about bringing things forward is if you don’t have the means by which to do it and people haven’t worked out exactly how that’s going to be done. So I think it would be a great idea, but I’m not sure that it would be achievable for everybody.”
In January this year the government confirmed that it will ban the use of fossil fuel heating systems, such as gas boilers, in new homes from 2025.
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It followed speculation by the national media that the ban on gas boilers would be brought forward to 2023.
At the same panel session yesterday, Tom Titherington, chief investment and development officer at Sovereign, said: “The infrastructure isn’t there yet. We need more investment into the grid and we need more investment into local things like sub-stations.
“We’re not in a position nationally to move immediately to the Future Homes Standard in terms of, for instance, using air source heat pumps in particular places. That technology is relatively inefficient and needs to improve.”
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said that 50% of the homes housing associations deliver come through Section 106 agreements, meaning the sector needs an “industry that is skilled up and ready to do this”.
She said: “In terms of that standard, for us it’s about having a platform above which we can innovate, but making sure that there is a level playing field so that we bring those house builders up all developing to that standard, so that we’re not retrofitting the new homes that we build.”
It came on the same day that Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that her party would spend £28bn a year on making the UK economy more “green” if elected.
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