the earlier humanity does it the less of us are going to burn (high ideals and crazy dreams)

sorry this is going to be a long one folks...

so horsemouth attended a lecture on what we can expect from the new labour government on the housing front (his major area of interest). 

so first off who are the crew?

the ministry of housing, communities and local government (minClog) is headed up by angela rayner. 

as you may note that levelling up is gone. 

angela is keen to get many of those powers gone as well by means of devolution round the regions (on the basis that is has worked so well with scotland, wales and northern ireland where any housing fuck-ups are now no longer the fault of westminster). this is just as well because angela will also be handling the role of deputy prime minister (think john prescott in drag) and so may not have much time and attention to devote to this housing lark. 

jim mcMahon OBE MP is minister of state and has local government  background. as does matthew pennycook MP 'unlike some previous housing ministers, he was recognised as having good experience in the housing sector, having tabled numerous amendments to the renters (reform) bill during the previous parliament' to quote wikipedia. 

er. so what do they want?

well they want local authorities, private developers, housing associations etc. to build lots and lots of housing and solve the housing crisis for them.  

but the essential problem is that the tory government have, in the past few decades, mercilessly shanked the social housing sector forcing costs that should be paid for through rent rises and thus housing benefit (or its equivalent) onto social housing bodies themselves and thus  forcing them to cut their services and their home building programmes. 

broadly any social housing provider with any sense would probably wish to get out of providing social housing and instead move into building properties for sale alibied by the minimum amount of 'affordable housing' (and this, indeed, is many HAs real strategy). 

now the lecture said none of this. (or certainly not as baldly as horsemouth states it). the assembled great and good inside housing looked forward to the opportunity but wanted more financial certainty. there was other stuff they would like to see, much clearer lines of finance for development for example. 

so will they get it? 

it takes time to build. the amount of housing needed to be built to take us back to where we need to be is vast. at the end of a decade of building at their current targets they will have begun to make a difference. 

but horsemouth doubts they can meet their targets because things are too fucked.  

take home message? things are going to stay fucked. 

later a meeting of the communal endeavour (over the magic of zoom). 

the majority of it is same old same old. but the decarbonisation stuff is starting to happen. now the main meeting for this will be september the 16th. and the reports into decarbonising the properties are delayed.

so, er, actually it's not starting to happen.  or at least not as soon as horsemouth would like it. 

now because no government money from the social housing decarbonisation fund is being used gas boiler upgrades can be used to bump some properties up to the EPC C performance standard. and in these cases job done. tick. target achieved. government happy (so far). 

based on the government estimates (these are based on a fabric first/ insulation first strategy) the communal endeavour has about half the money it needs get the properties up to an EPC C standard. in some ways the question is really what is the best way to spend the money - to warm up the most members first, or to warm up the coldest house first. 

but all this doesn't really decarbonise the house because fossil fuels are still being burned to heat it (they are just being burned a bit more efficiently). 

similarly with insulation. 

the point (for horsemouth) about adding the insulation is it makes adding an air source heat pump possible (and thus fully decarbonising the property). 

a note here. solar panels and batteries can drastically reduce electricity use and judicious use of various tariffs can drastically reduce electricity bills but the majority of your bill is the cost of heating the property (and that heating is usually done with gas).

if the co-op goes the boiler renewal route we are effectively putting back fitting air source heat pumps until after 2035 in those properties. 

this may actually be a realistic timetable (in terms of the amount of money the co-op has in the reserves or has coming in)  but horsemouth is disappointed not to be able decarbonise earlier - the earlier humanity does it the less of us are going to burn because the less C02 we are going to put in the atmosphere. 

horsemouth just wants to come up with a strategy where they are doing the right thing with the resources they have and then he wants to succeed in persuading the people in each house that it's the best plan and er... so on. 

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so horsemouth wrote last night. of course the disadvantage of writing the blogpost the night before is you don't have the pleasure of writing it the morning after. here a grey day perhaps a visit to town to do some book shopping.