The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is planning a major shake-up of the way local authorities can specify higher-than-baseline standards for housing built in their area.

If DCLG have their way, gone will be the freedom to apply, for example, Lifetime Homes, Space standards, Code for Sustainable Homes, and the Merton rule and in their place, a pared-down menu of standards that will only be allowed the basis of rigorous local “needs tests” and “viability tests”.

The articles on this page discuss the content of the Review, and suggest possible responses, and we hope they will help AECB members to respond to aspects of this consultation about which they feel strongly.

Information will be added to this page in stages – please check back, or view the @AECBnet twitter account for updates.

Overview of Housing Standards Review

A quick look through the Review’s main proposals, plus some highlighted consultation questions.

Download Overview of Housing Standards Review

AECB Response to Proposals on Water

The AECB’s long-standing criticism of the Part L and Code for Sustainable Homes’ system for achieving water savings has at last borne fruit, and for the first time an appliance-based standard is being proposed for demonstrating compliance with the Building Regulations.

Nonetheless criticisms remain, both of the proposed efficiency levels, and the criteria governing when they can be required.

This article contains AECB’s formal response to the DCLG consultation questions on water efficiency, along with some background. Members are free to use this document to inform their own responses.

Download AECB Consultation Response Water-Standards

Please note – this now also contains AECB’s response to technical Question A4.1

Don’t Let them put our Housing Standards on the Red Tape Bonfire – AECB Member Soapbox

AECB member James Livingstone makes a heartfelt plea for the government not to throw the ecological baby out with the bureaucratic bathwater.

Read James’ Soapbox here