Monthly Archives: April 2011

The Eco Retrofit Carbon Con Trick

By , Saturday, 30 April 2011, 3 Comments

Thanks for the great debate on the last post. As ever your comments bring more light than my initial thoughts. In that spirit of starting the conversation here is my take on last week’s Edge Debate on low carbon buildings.

It is not widely appreciated amongst the building buying public that developer’s claims for the energy performance of buildings are based on computer models of anticipated performance rather than the actual performance of the building. I suspect that many developers aren’t entirely aware of this either and for the most part their environmental consultants aren’t telling them. Read more »

Localism and Urban Neighbourhood Councils

By , Tuesday, 26 April 2011, 9 Comments

It is a source of frustration, though not surprise, to many that the silos of Government have not been broken down in the early stages of the Big Society roll out.

Government is currently hitting communities with new initiatives from all angles. Whether it is GP commissioning, free schools, Green Deal or neighbourhood planning it is the community at a local neighbourhood level that needs to respond. In urban areas the governance structures are mainly missing. The lack of a formal organised neighbourhood level structure that can attract people with the time and energy to help support and deliver these initiatives seems pretty fundamental. Read more »

The Evolution and Chaos of Localism

By , Saturday, 16 April 2011, 1 Comment

I trained as an ecologist so evolution is a particular interest (along with Chaos Theory) and the evolution and chaos of Localism is proving entertaining. Read more »

Lunch with Greg Clark and John Gummer

By , Saturday, 9 April 2011, Be the first to comment

Thanks to Sarah Whitney and my old friend Stuart Robinson of CBRE for inviting me to this interesting lunch. Greg Clark and John Gummer both have a formidable track record on climate change and I was reminded of John Gummer’s role (with Zac Goldsmith and Oliver Letwin if I recall correctly) in the Quality of Life report which was a cross party (ish) vision for the future which I suspect deserves a revisit. Greg suggested that the new presumption in favour of sustainable development was originally proposed there.

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Front Runners, Contradictions and Spin

By , Sunday, 3 April 2011, 5 Comments

There have been a number of questions raised and answered about Government competence this week.

Oliver Letwin was excellent at the Green Alliance launch of their work on the behavioural challenges to achieving a reduction in greenhouse gases. His intelligent analysis of the need for ‘nudge’ policies (eg lower stamp duty for energy efficient properties, higher for inefficient ones) to be supported by enabling policies (eg the Green Deal removal of financial obstacles to eco retrofit of buildings) and regulation (eg the banning of the sale and letting of inefficient properties at a point in time in the future to catch the recalcitrant) showed that despite the lack of a coherent publicly announced policy there are people in senior positions within Government that clearly ‘get it’.

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