Council Aims For Zero Carbon Homes By 2025

Residential homes account for about 16% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the UK

The Oxford City Council is planning to force all new homes and buildings to be constructed as net zero carbon by 2025. It is consulting on its Local Plan 2040 which would include new environmental rules for builders. It would bring forward the requirement for all new developments in Oxford to be built to run at zero carbon.

Home Builders Federation's managing director Neil Jefferson described the rules as “too ambitious” and said they would go beyond government regulations. The new local plan would also mean that no fossil fuels would be allowed for heating or cooking in new builds. Residential homes account for about the 16% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK.

Councillor Louise Upton said the requirement was “one of the concrete steps” towards achieving the city's net zero goal by 2040. Upton, the cabinet member for planning, also said the authority wanted all new homes to have really low energy bills. “Warm homes are healthier homes,” she said. “We are doing it because we don't want everyone to have to do retrofitting later on.”

Home Builders Federation director Neil Jefferson said more details were needed on the plans. In 2025, compliance with the Future Homes Standard (FHS) will become mandatory, ensuring that new homes would produce 75% - 80% less carbon emissions than homes built under the current building regulations. He asked for all homes to be built net zero carbon from 2025 was “slightly too much too soon”. “It’s ahead of the government target, it’s probably too far ahead,” he said, adding, “So, there is more detail to come.”

The Council, on the other hand, insisted its plans were viable. Upton called it “one of the concrete steps that we need to take in order to make that goal real”. “This technology already exists. Forward thinking developers are already building these kinds of homes,” she added. “What I hope this plan will do is going to nudge everybody else because it makes it a level playing field that everybody has to abide by these standards.”