Homeowners and economy lose out in latest budget

The 2009 budget (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/bud_bud09_repindex.htm) fails to address the growing energy crisis in the UK’s existing housing stock, despite setting the UK’s first legally-binding carbon reduction target.

The Government used this year’s budget to set a 34% carbon emissions reduction target for 2020 (on a 1990 baseline), as stipulated by the Climate Change Act. 27% of the UK's total carbon emissions come from its 26.2million existing homes, making this an important target for action to reduce carbon emissions. The budget offers little, however, to help improve energy efficiency in the existing housing stock.

£375million is to be made available to support energy and resource efficiency in businesses, public buildings and households over the next two years. £100million of this will support the construction of new homes at higher energy efficiency standards, and £65million will help install energy efficiency measures in public buildings. However, only £100million has been made available to improve energy efficiency in existing homes in the social housing sector.

The Existing Homes Alliance has been asking Government to kickstart the green economy with a £2billion financial package to tackle energy efficiency in the UK’s existing housing stock. This would have helped create up to 150,000 jobs in the construction sector, improved the energy performance of some 500,000 homes and supported the Government in its work towards its carbon emission reduction targets. The 2009 budget missed this opportunity to give energy efficiency in the existing housing stock the attention it urgently needs.