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The site for six new Code level four homes in the West Midlands
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Green is the word these days – or so they tell me. But when I looked into building energy-efficient homes, it wasn’t so much green for go as a headache-inducing procession of red-lit delays, inefficiencies and downright procrastination.
I’ve been building in the West Midlands for over forty years and running my own small family firm for over twenty-five. I know about building but this was all new terrain. Initially I wanted to go green because in this tough market, you have to differentiate yourself, give yourself a USP. What I didn’t realise was that I would be one of the first in the local area to build ‘green’; amazingly, even the big boys haven’t done much more than dipped their toes in the water. In comparison, it looked like I was setting myself up for swimming the Channel – without an accompanying lifeboat. I spent three to four months just researching the project, finding out about the most recently available technology and how it all fitted together.
I put in for planning permission with the local council for three pairs of semi-detached, three-bedroom houses (approximately 1,000 sq ft) with gardens on a brownfield site not far from the M42, between Tamworth and Nuneaton. My apparently ground-breaking green package included three main features: the first comprises solar photovoltaic panels laid out in a 16 grid system. The surplus energy produced will render the homes zero bill via the Feed-in Tariff (FIT). The second is air source heat pump (ASHP) with underfloor heating downstairs and thermostatic valve controls on the bedroom radiators using natural energy. The third is water harvesting, which catches rainwater and cleans it suitable for use in toilets and so on. However, all of this is fairly redundant unless the homes are built virtually seam-free. The joins have to be of the highest spec to minimise heat loss. All of this would ensure that we were level four on the Code for Sustainable Homes, the first that we’re aware of in the local area, and – you might think – a real boon for the council.
We put in for planning in November 2010. We got planning at the end of March 2011. Five months. Five months of wrangling with the council – and the objections that kept arising were nothing whatsoever to do with the green package. In fact, disappointingly, the green aspect was totally ignored. The council apparently felt the loss to the community of a disused church hall, sold to us by the church itself, far outweighed the benefits of new sustainable housing with all its concomitant government perks.
So, now we have it. Planning has been achieved, land contracts have been exchanged and completed and we can now get to work. I’m going to be keeping you up to date with progress – all of the hiccups and (hopefully) triumphs – as it happens. It’s not easy being green – or did someone already say that?
Matthew Dodsley is from www.ukecohomes.co.uk
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