• Future homes

This is the government’s announcement that, as part of the Future Homes Standard, new-build homes will from 2028 have to have solar panels and heat pumps installed. In this article, the BBC paints an upbeat view of this announcement: in this one, The Guardian points to the fact that as a result of pressure from developers the implementation has been delayed , a “disappointment echoed by West Berkshire’s Green Party, and that loopholes still remain. However, perhaps what we should celebrate is the fact that it’s happened at all.

The Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, said that “the Iran war has once again shown our drive for clean power is essential for our energy security so we can escape the grip of fossil fuel markets we don’t control.” Even though he’s conflating two different problems – the need for clean energy and the need for energy security – he’s right. Some may agree with the second of these more than with the first.

However, even the most extreme climate sceptics would recognise that, if we aren’t to remain potentially in hock to the vagaries of a world that we no longer have any particular influence over, home-produced energy has got to be the way forward. We used to produce about enough fossil fuels to meet our needs, but no longer. Substantial reserves remain but these are almost entirely offshore and challenging to exploit.

For most people, a stable price and stable supply is more important than the source. Given this, we need to be self-reliant. Until some bright spark comes up with room-temperature nuclear fusion, renewable energy has clearly got a massive role to play. No conflict in the Middle East or elsewhere – except an apocalyptic one, in which case none of this matters – can stop our sunshine, tides or winds. Even a small row can, as matters stand, cause spikes in price and supply of fossil fuels which we can do almost nothing to control.

• Challenges

If we’re going to build 300,000 homes a year (which we aren’t, but that’s the target) and if the average house footprint is 80 square metres and if the panels need to cover 40% of the footprint area, then it looks like about ten square kilometres of panels are needed a year, in addition to those (perhaps half this amount) which are being installed at the moment. Where will the extra ones come from?

Most currently come from China. Can we rely on this supply, any more than we can rely on Russian gas or Middle-eastern oil? If serious steps aren’t taken to stimulate local production then we’re replacing one overseas reliance with another.

The same applies to the raw materials, mainly silicon, silver, aluminium, and copper. China and Russia are two of the largest processors of these at present. Other sources exist, but can they be ethically and profitably mined?

Given that there’s generally an inverse relationship between when solar power is generated and when it’s needed, battery storage is also required. This produces very similar ethical, financial and geo-political challenges.

• Planning problems

The government can issue as many directives and pass as many laws as it likes: but how well will they be followed? In the case of anything to do with development consent, the responsibility lies largely with the local planning authorities such as West Berkshire and Vale of White Horse. These tend to be over-worked and under-funded and can be worn down or outspent by a determined developer. The BBC suggests that these changes may add £10,000 onto the cost of every home. Being able to evade even a part of this obligation will pay handsome dividends for those building them. Are the planning authorities able to stand up to them?

“Locally, there are good and bad developers,” David Marsh of the West Berkshire Green Party told Penny Post on 26 March: “the good ones who recognise their responsibilities to the environment, and the bad ones who will try to wheedle their way out of the promises they made to gain planning permission. The council needs to get tough on this.” A bit more funding would help.

There seem to be two main areas of conflict. One is with viability assessments, where developers claim that adding a certain feature would render the scheme uneconomic. The second is with the actual enforcement, of ensuring that the details of the scheme as eventually agreed are actually built. Both of these require staff, time and expertise if the planning authority is to stand its ground.

• Going hypothetical

One possible example is where a developer on a hundred-home green-field site claims that that, rather than installing solar panels on every home – some of which are not suitable for this – creating a dedicated solar-panel array on land that would have been used for ten of the affordable or social-rent homes (so leaving thirty), and part of the land designed for the open space, would produce a far greater benefit. This would enable the homes to be built more quickly and sold more cheaply and for the array to be more efficiently managed.

How would the planning authority react, assuming they had the power to vary the stipulation of panels on every roof?

Reports on both sides would be needed, and the people who write these don’t work for the minimum wage. You can also bet your life that the developer would want to retain some interest in the return from the array. There would be debates about who would manage this and where the revenues would go. Then a connection to the National Grid (see below for more on this) would have to be agreed. This can take a long time. Work on the array won’t start until that’s happened. Will the developers still be in business by then, or will they have found a way to claim that, despite what was previously agreed, the array is no longer necessary or economically viable? Above all, will the planning authority be able to keep on top of this issue and fight to ensure that what’s been agreed is followed?

As mentioned above, there’s one possible solution to many of the problems of the increasingly complex planning system that hasn’t been tried. That is to fund it properly and allow the planning authorities that often are in conflict with developers to meet them on terms of greater equality. These are, after all, national regulations or officially approved local plans that they’re trying to defend, so it’s us they’re working for.

• A wider view

It’s also worth reflecting on what these measures are trying to accomplish.

Some might argue that, if the intention is to reduce the carbon emissions of a home, then this is largely already being accomplished through the Part L of the Building Control Regulations regarding the conservation of fuel and power. This enables solutions to be tailored to the particular needs of the site and the building, including its aspect, orientation and height. Solar panels might not in every case be the best solution. How, for example, will this work on blocks of flats, or with buildings on north-facing slopes?

If the intention is to reduce the strain on the national grid, which experiences considerable surges in demand depending on temperature, time and season – or if it was to save households money – then batteries might have been included in the regulations. Any household can use these to store energy when it’s cheap from the supplier, or free from any panels they have, and use it when demand is higher. They also, I believe, have a longer shelf-life than many solar panels and, given the wide range of energy tariffs, will provide a faster payback.

The use of batteries is thus to shift the mantra of “independent energy generation” to one of “independent energy storage”, which is perhaps more useful and realistic.

If the intention is to stimulate a domestic solar-panel market then, as mentioned above, it may well have that effect. However, the short-term winners look like being companies in China.

If the intention is to demonstrate that the government is serious about combatting the energy problem then that might achieve its effect as well. However, as mentioned, it might create battles with planning authorities that don’t need to be fought, introduce technology that might not be the best solution and duplicate (and so possibly undermine) regulations that already exist. It also risks the government being accused of micro-management.

If the intention is to speed up approvals and construction then, for the above reasons, it may not work.

If the intention is to engender the psychology of “we’re all doing our bit to maximise energy independence” then this will help.

If the intention is to make developers (through higher costs) or purchasers (through higher prices) rather than Whitehall (ie us all) pay for this then, unless the government introduces any subsidies, it will probably succeed.

Hopefully, this will leave the government freer to expedite two even larger problems, icebergs, elephants or what you will, that remain…

• One elephant

The first is the embodied energy in a building, the amount of energy used to create it.

This article from the Designing Buildings Wiki website estimates (admittedly from a 2002 source) that some buildings in Sweden consumed in their construction 40% of the energy that they’d use up in total during fifty years of habitable life. This more recent article by Morson Praxis claims that “embodied energy significantly contributes to carbon emissions and can account for up to 30% of a building’s total energy consumption over its lifetime.” Building Design goes even further, suggesting that “more than 60% of a new home’s total carbon footprint is emitted before the first resident walks over the threshold.”

A graph in the Building Design article suggests that progress here is moving more slowly than with the reduction of energy consumption in an occupied building. This indicates that the amount of embodied carbon used in materials and construction will, by about 2050, still be about the same as which is used in powering and heating it now. This further assumes, perhaps optimistically, that by 2035 the grid will be fully decarbonised meaning that all homes which are powered entirely by electricity will be carbon-zero.

• Another elephant

The second elephant is the National Grid.

This suffers from extreme peaks and troughs and also, according to Greenpeace, wastes vast amounts of power through poor transmission with “54 per cent of the energy we use in producing that power is lost before it arrives at homes and businesses.” The National Grid itself recognises that there’s a challenge – “we’re investing for the future,” the website claims, “connecting more and more low carbon electricity to our network. Its 2026-31 business plan has “an ambitious framework to deliver up to £35bn investment.”

There have also been huge problems with small electricity-generating schemes getting connections to the National grid, the wait times for confirmation being sometimes longer than the three-year period during which planning permissions can lapse. Although this is improving, it remains a problem that, given the imperatives we’re dealing with, shouldn’t exist.

Will the progress on embodied energy and the National Grid be enough to reduce the actual carbon of buildings and to improve the way that they can receive power? These are perhaps more fundamental issues than mandating a one-size-fits-all solar-panel solution.

• Normalisation

The government’s ambition may also be to get people used to the idea of things like solar panels and heat pumps – and, in time, batteries – as a normal way of dealing with problems. The best results happen when measures, like seat belts, the smoking ban in pubs and drink-driving laws are introduced which soon seem normal aspects of life. I suggest the three-weekly black-bin collections in West Berkshire and elsewhere have also achieved this status.

Such things require enforcement – though not in the case of the black bins as you either put yours out on the right day or you don’t – but not too much. The penalties are quite clear, particularly for the driving ones: more importantly, there’s a sense of societal disapproval for anyone who errs. This is perhaps more effective for most people than any official sanctions.

In the same way, the idea of having solar panels, heat pumps (or batteries) on new-builds may be unpopular for some now because of the extra costs but will pay dividends later. Increasingly, people may demand such things in order to pay top-rate for a property – as became the case with central heating, now an assumed feature, about forty years ago – at which point developers will be falling over each other to install them. Homes without these features may be regarded as second-rate, leaving the owner with inadequate energy arrangements and the extra cost of retro-fitting better alternatives.

This idea of normalising change is more important than any government initiatives or laws. These might point the way: but if public acceptance doesn’t follow then enforcement becomes impossible. Thatcher’s poll tax  (officially the community charge) is a wonderful example. Governments can lead but it’s still necessary for people to follow, at least for as long and Russian , North Korean or Iranian tactics aren’t used to enforce them.

• Bird nesting

We have a beech hedge between our garden and the road which periodically needs to be trimmed. This must happen between September and February to avoid the bird-nesting season. The last two firms we got to help us with this were clear about this – work in the spring or summer was impossible. Whether this was due to an innate sense of responsibility or the fear that neighbours would name-and-shame them on social media didn;t really matter – the combination of legislation and poular opinion had done its work.

We were aware of how many birds live in this hedge although, to be honest, I hadn’t until about eight years ago fully realised that trimming in April was akin to bombing a maternity hospital. I get it now. The idea is normalised.

I thought I’d check this theory and so called up another local landscaping company this week. “Could you let me know if you can cut a hedge between now and the end of August?” I asked.

“But that’s the bird-nesting season,” she replied.

“Thank you,” I said, “you’ve proved my point.”

“I’m sorry?”

I explained.

“So, we’ve passed the test, have we?”

I assured her that they had.

Something that’s normalised becomes harder to evade than to comply with. Hopefully a sense that renewable power is normal will soon pervade both the planning process and society at large, in the same way the central heating or double glazing did, or seat belts and drink driving have done. Legislation merely starts the process. How well observed the law is depends to a large extent on how normalised the restriction or demand is. The trick for any government is not to pass lots of dramatic laws but to nudge behaviour into channels that perhaps already exist and make the measures seem to be a normal and rational reaction to the issue that they’re trying to address.

Whether the government’s latest attempts to mandate solar panels and heat pumps will have the effect remains to be seen. What’s welcome, though, is that there’s a growing move to normalise alternative sources of energy. If this could be allied to a normalisation of storing it, distributing it and reducing the carbon footprint of all these homes we’re trying to build then we really might be getting somewhere.

• And finally…

• HS2 has now passed beyond parody and ridicule into something that resembles an alarming alternative universe. The reason why this line from Euston (if it gets that far) to Birmingham was so expensive was because of the obsession with the speed, and thus straight lines. Now the government has, the BBC reports, “ordered the company building the project to consider lower speeds on the line from London to Birmingham” in order to save money.

First problem is that some real money would have been saved were this to have been suggested before the route alignment was finalised. Second problem is that, if the trains run more slowly, more trains will be needed to offer the same service. Third problem is that it might still cost £100bn.

• There are few events that happen in the world that aren’t advantageous for those with the right instincts or, perhaps, information. It seems that earlier this week “traders bet hundreds of millions of dollars on oil contracts just minutes before US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the US would postpone strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure.” How did they know that this was going to happen?

• On the matter of the Iran war itself, there seem to be wildly divergent opinions between the main participants as to what the outcome of any peace talks are, or might be, or even whether they’re taking place at all.

• Euro Weekly reports that “a jury in Los Angeles has found Meta and YouTube negligent in a closely watched case examining the impact of social media use on mental health.” This will result in, for the companies, a derisory damages payment of $3m to the plaintiff; but, more importantly, the normalisation – that word again – of the idea that “prolonged exposure to their platforms contributed to serious psychological harm.” The boss of meta-owned Instagram, Adam Mosseri, defended sixteen hours of Instagram use in one day by one subscriber as being possibly “problematic’, but stopped short of calling it an addiction.

Given that Instagram exists to make money and not to provide any particular societal benefits, sixteen hours of use in one day by one person has got to be regarded as a success. It’s hard to see how any effective regulation can happen of an organisation which hooks us into engagement and yet which maintains that it’s merely a medium of free expression, just like the internet or the telephone systems. The key question is whether we can, every time we log on to wherever, regard ourselves as having some kind of agency in the process and responsibility for what we do, or don’t do, next.

• It appears that a new Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been anointed or whatever they do to them. Sarah Mullally said that after the ceremony “her teenage self “could never have imagined the future that lay ahead.” Nor could, or can, those teenagers who were abused by those who fell into the clutches of the C of E and failed to achieve any closure. The accusations are everywhere, including in this article. There were over 380 cases of abuse being examined in 2022 and there’s nothing I’ve seen that’s suggested this has declined since. The Church of England is a very far from a perfect organisation, or religion, or experience or whatever it describes itself as this week. Other organisations, religions and experiences are available…

Across the area

• Money matters

West Berkshire Council’s finances continue to cause concern, though the situation has been somewhat eased by the promise of a £30m exceptional financial support loan from the government. Leader Jeff Brooks is, however, adamant that this should not be seen as a windfall and insists that every effort is being made to ensure that every item of expenditure is brought in on or under budget.

This is particularly the case for the two massive cost areas of social care and children’s services. WBC has no control over how many people require such services but can decide how these are provided. The Council’s social-care department employs about five hundred people, not all of them front-line social workers, and recruits services from several external providers. Jeff Brooks assured me this week that “a close lens” is being brought to bear on all areas of expenditure at weekly financial meetings.

Another area WBC is looking at is its own assets. Some of these have been used by other organisations for little or no rent for a long time and efforts are now being made to ensure that all such agreements are re-negotiated and enforced. The aim was not, he assured me, for the Council to turn into a rapacious landlord but merely to ensure that it’s getting what it’s owed. So, if your organisation has been using a WBC building and paying little or nothing for it, expect a call or an email.

It may also be that WBC has assets which are under-used and which might end up being sold. If so, the plan would not be to use the proceeds to tip into the pot of day-to-day expenditure but to see if they could be re-invested so as to create further assets, and an income. This could include, for example, selling under-used ground for development but taking a share in the resulting project.

Another aspect of WBC’s finance that’s under scrutiny is its salary costs. This will be being looked at an extraordinary meeteing of the Full Council on 26 March and we’ll have more on this next week. Given that this needs to held by 1 April every year, I’m a little unsure what’s “extraordinary” about it – surely it can’t be that it was forgotten about until earlier this week? I also hope that the members will have had enough time to study all the documents. One of the issues concerns the apparent considerable increase in the number of “chief officers” over the last few years.

• Another solar farm near Grazeley

We mentioned last week about the two solar farms planned near Grazeley – one a new scheme proposed by One Planet, the other a long-nurtured scheme of West Berkshire Council’s.

Regarding the latter, I mentioned that, contrary to what you might have read elsewhere, the scheme has not been canned but is currently being reviewed. The hope was that an announcement would be made by the end of next month. It now seems that we may have to wait a little longer for this while the “complex business case” is re-examined.

As I suggested last week, with the government watching how the money it’s loaned WBC is spent, prudent and defensible decisions must be taken. It’s also important that the Council doesn’t over-think things – this is a forty-year project, there are going to be many changes in circumstances. What seems unlikely to alter, though, is the need for increased energy security which this scheme – indeed, both of them – can help provide.

The clock’s also ticking as regard the connection to the grid, no small matter with such projects. I understand that if WBC doesn’t confirm the scheme within the next few months, the arrangements that have been made for this might lapse.

• Ridgeway

The consultation on this has now closed and the government will now ponder the three options for Oxfordshire’s re-organisation, two of which would involve the creation of a new Ridgeway Council involving West Berkshire, the Vale and South Oxfordshire. One thing that can be pretty much be guaranteed is that the two-tier structure here and elsewhere will disappear: what’s less certain is whether the Ridgeway proposal will form part of the solution.

Some clues may be gleaned from the government’s imminent announcement about the future of the various proposals in Hampshire, also currently labouring under a two-tier system. What’s decided here will give an indication as to how serious Whitehall is about sticking to its stated aim that unitary councils should have a population of around half a million people, and certainly not be too much smaller than this. The two-unitary proposal for Oxfordshire and West Berkshire (Ridgeway, as described above, as one council and the rest of the county including the City as the second) is the only one of the three that would satisfy this ambition.

The government may also decide that the whole process has got too complicated and that a single unitary for Oxfordshire is the best way forward, despite this having about 780,000 people.

• News from your local councils