Merton rule ditched

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Guardian hack Ashley Seager is making a bit of a name for himself. A week after revealing that government officials are looking to sidestep our obligation to produce 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020 he now reports that housebuilders have won their aim to ditch the so-called Merton rule, whereby local authorities can set their own renewable targets for local developments. "The Merton rule... seems as if it's going to be airbrushed out of history like a dissident from an old Soviet photograph," says Merton council principle environment officer Adrian Hewitt.

Comments

[Nick Devlin]

I wondered how long before this would raise its' head. You can certainly see the logic in the lobbyists claims, that they want a national target rather than varying conditions depending on location. But surely, the 10% requirement should only be dropped once there is a national framework as replacement and not before. And lets face it, if one were to draw a roadmap of achieving zero-carbon dwellings by 2016, we should already be looking at 20% over the next 18 months. This of course is side stepping the whole debate about the most cost-effective and appropriate way to deliver a large proportion of renewables to housing.

Interestingly, schemes required to meet Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (RSL's at present) are required to demonstrate a 25% improvement in their regulated CO2 emissions compared to building regs. On the number of projects that I have reviewed, only about two thirds of this figure can be achieved through reasonable improvements to the insulation and airtightness standards. Therefore, renewables seem to be required anyhow.

[Phil Clark]

There's a few more twists and turns on this debate, not least the report this morning by the New Local Government Network calling for more local powers for councils to encourage on-site renewables. I have yet to get the report yet but will post on it when I do.
One suggestion from Stuart Macdonald at Building http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=318&storycode=3093766 (subscriber only) is that there will be government targets for renewable energy to power sites, but not necessarily for it to be via on-site installations.