Mark Ellson cited the industry working harder on the retro fitting. “The focus can’t all be on new buildings. There’s a real opportunity with the existing stock. It has to be done in bite-sized chunks, and means looking at building typologies, and strategies to deal with how you would make them more efficient. We have 20,000 schools across the country that are in a poor state and in need of a repair, they could be rejuvenated and retrofitted, for instance. That's where the focus needs to shift.” Canterbury is one of dozens of small heritage cities in the UK wrestling with the carbon reduction, where much of the existing stock has been standing for over a century. “There’s a lot of guidance, but it’s still quite conservative,” commented Nicholas Thurston. “I think we will start to see a change, with more allowance for renewable energy, different types of doors, windows, and cladding so that we transform the energy demands of the city centre.”
Guy Hannell felt the case for retrofitting would be much stronger with better data. “If our industry is producing compelling data to demonstrate, your choices are refurb an old school and the carbon footprint is X, and a new build box is Y. An evidence-based approach is going to allow an informed decision. We already see that desire with our local authority customers, they want to make sensible decisions and actually demonstrate what they have achieved and that things can be refined and improved over time.”
William Cornall put the focus on ensuring a healthy diversity of public buildings uses, he noted “The more multipurpose the better. There are plenty of opportunities with schools, to get them working around the clock. Every space is utilised intensively in other environments, like hotels, it can make your buildings really efficient. It follows that you can invest more, because there's greater payback in every sense. Commissioning really well thought out buildings that are multi-purpose from, 9am to 9pm, is an opportunity to benefit a wider cross section of society.”
Nicholas Thurston commented that the level of grant funding for local authority climate action has increased in recent years, but much of it remains short term and the process burdensome. “I'm really hopeful that the government and BEIS will learn from the challenges they've had during the pandemic around the Green Homes Grant and getting subsidies to help people transform their homes will become easier. For councils, access to the funding is really hard work, competitive bidding, funding application after funding application, and it's not giving us the long term view that we need because of very short delivery deadlines. We’d really like to see that unlocked in a more sustainable way.”
William Cornall saw an opportunity for councils in the Community Infrastructure Levy. “The amount of money going into highways schemes is really counterintuitive in terms of Net Zero targets,” he reflected. “Rather than fund small scale local highway schemes to pacify protesters about a housing project that's gone ahead, there's a lot more potential to invest the bulk of the money in greener infrastructure projects. I think that that will be a really good test for councillors to say, ‘OK, we're just going to do something brave, and we're not going to spread it thin there, we’re going for something bigger and more impactful.”
Matthew Blythin and Thomas Warner both talked about the benefits of fabric-first approach. “In my experience of planning, when you get into a conversation with members or officers, they'll push for photovoltaics. And then I'll have the M&E consultant saying, ‘Well, that's not necessarily the best option with this budget - you'll get more savings if you went another way. But it’s almost like they want the bling, something tangible and relatable. So there's an education piece around the hierarchy and what works best.” Thomas Warner reinforced the point. “Start with insulating and you won’t necessarily need as much PV.”
