The GHA developed a significant policy presence during 2008/09 and we are continuing to grow our influence with the new governemnt. In addition to our continuing work on effective regulation and feedback and monitoring, we also plan to explore wider policy aspects of good homes during 2010, including health, well-being and neighbourhood aspects.

Using the practical experience of its members and associated research work, the GHA is lobbying Government and land owners to encourage fully sustainable house building through legislation and specification.

Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH)

The GHA has been a member of the CSH Technical Working Group since 2007, and has worked diligently to try and ensure that the Code will actually deliver truly sustainable homes. During 2008-09 we found problems in several areas - energy, water and materials - and highlighted these in 3 detailed papers, all available below.

The energy paper highlights our Members' experience of implementing the energy requirements at Levels 3 & 4, suggesting that there are some inconsistencies in the Code, that the % reduction methodology can be unhelpful for some building types, and that there are significant unintended consequences arising from the fuel factors defined in Building Regulations. These issues were recognised by DCLG and the points were examined and addressed as part of the 2010 review of Part L of the Building Regulations.

The water paper highlighted problems with this section of the code and the water calculator, which were also acknowledged by DCLG and are now under consultation as part of the Part G 2010 review. The water calculator has now been updated but inapporapraite rainwater harvesting is still being specified for higher levels of the Code.

The GHA also highlighted some difficulties with using BRE's Green Guide to Specification in the materials section of the Code - see the section below for more info.
 

BRE's Green Guide to Specification

The GHA prepared a critique of BRE's Green Guide to Specification, written by Neil May of Natural Building Technologies and Gary Newman of Plant Fibre Technology. The critique highlighted a number of concerns raisd by GHA members related to the use of the Green Guide, particularly:
- transparency of the LCA data
- build up of the data into Generic Profiles
- potential negative impacts on whole-house performance
- use of the Green Guide as a Planning or Code requirement

Many of these cticism remain valid today; a copy of the critique and an update following recent responses can be downloaded below.
 

Part L 2010 review

The GHA was asked to input into working groups 3 and 6 leading up to the consultation process for Part L 2010. Copies of the Part L consultation documents are available below.

Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes - EEPH

The GHA attends the new build branch of EEPH - see more at www.eeph.org.uk

Zero Carbon definitions

The GHA was involved in preparing an input to the definition for zero carbon homes - see our response below. The recommended definitions were accepted by Government in late 2009, and received a positive reception at the GHA Winterval debate in December 2009 - see the results of the debate below.