Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are having to incur substantial extra costs to meet the stringent new CSH Code Level 3 standards, which came into force as part of the Code For Sustainable Homes - which seeks to achieve zero carbon new builds by 2016.
The Government currently allocates little or no additional funding to newly built social housing. The construction specification is now substantially higher leading to significant cost increases which are funded from the standard budget.
This has prompted Ian Moores, a Code Assessor and director of architectural firm ARK to call on the government to rethink its funding policy.
Moores, who works within the social housing sector, has first hand experience of the plight faced by many RSLs.
Early research undertaken by the Governments own cost consultants originally confirmed that bringing housing units up to Code 3 would come at little extra cost to the sector.
Moores said: “In practice this is proving to be far from accurate. Additional materials and equipment are putting substantial sums onto unit build costs, and the problem faced by the RSL’s is set to escalate in the next few months as design teams struggle to develop affordable solutions.”
The Code for Sustainable Homes introduces minimum standards for energy and water efficiency at every level of the new national standard. The Code measures the sustainability of a home against key design categories, rating the 'whole home' as a complete package.
The minimum standards for Code compliance have been set above the requirements of Building Regulations.
Homes are assessed at design stage and require verification at post-completion stage.
