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To: Michael Gove, minister for leveling up, housing and communities. Kwasi Kwateng, business secretary. George Eustace, Defra.

Carbon neutral new homes

My petition is to ask the government to Legislate to force construction companies to include photovoltaic panels and ground source heat pumps mandatory on all new builds and to make the development of solar farms illegal.

For too long the Government has spoken positively about climate change, most recently at COP26 but have passed no laws to drive forward their promises.

Construction companies have been allowed to get away with new properties that simply use insulation and double glazing to reduce energy consumption, still install gas boilers, yet we are constantly informed that we must move away from fossil fuels.

A straight forward positive step, to help our move towards a carbon neutral future, would be to proscribe all new builds whatever their type, residential, commercial or industrial, to install photovoltaic panels and ground source heat pumps as a part of the construction.

I am aware that Photovoltaic and ground source pumps would increase the price of the house or property but, particularly in the case of PV panels we are talking about a few thousand pounds on a cost of some hundred of thousands and such installations would benefit the householder or business, drawing more people into a personal reduced carbon world and saving them money on fuel.

If we are really going to achieve reach our carbon promises by 2050, the construction industry must take a stronger lead and install both PV panels and ground source heat pumps.

In parallel I see the argument against the development of Solar farms, these are sometimes associated with new construction projects but this use of land is surely unconscionable. We are frequently reminded of how much of our food is imported. Such land should be use to grow food or to plant trees, depending on the quality of the land. Both would help in driving down our carbon footprint by reducing food imports or increasing carbon capture. Obviously there is a commercial market for solar farms which give their developer a long term income but this is not a sensible way forward.

Why is this important?

We are facing an enormous climate crisis and should be ensuring that new buildings are climate neutral, in addition with the unprecedented rise in the cost of carbon fuels climate neutral buildings can help homeowners and businesses' to reduce their fuel bills.

United Kingdom

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Updates

2022-03-16 16:39:27 +0000

25 signatures reached

2022-03-15 16:13:49 +0000

10 signatures reached