Ringwood Neighbourhood Plan is seeking the views of local people about Energy Efficient Buildings for Ringwood
Globally the climate crisis is a serious threat. Increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events are already being realised in the UK. The cause is greenhouse gas emissions and we in Ringwood can do our part to decrease ours towards the Government target of ‘net zero’ by 2050 by increasing energy efficiency in our homes.
Large developers generally build housing to the minimum standards allowed by regulators. Even those homes built to the current 2013 Building Regulations standards will need to be retrofitted with additional measures in order to achieve the ‘net zero’ aspiration. Better would be to build homes with these measures in place or to use alternative designs that are intrinsically more energy efficient. It is much easier to build homes better in the first place.
Mayor Tony Ring said: “Housing in Ringwood generally has low EPC ratings of C or below. It will take a big effort to bring these homes up to higher standards. We should not be adding to the problem by allowing developers to build new homes here with anything less than excellent energy efficiency. To do otherwise will simply make a big problem even bigger.”
Complete the survey at www.ringwoodnp.org.uk/environment.