What policies should we propose to protect our environment?
What policies should we propose to protect our environment?
It’s widely acknowledged that insulation (eg cavity wall or loft) is the biggest, quickest way of improving the energy efficiency of the nation's housing stock.
Whilst many people have taken it upon themselves to install insulation, and there have been some limited local authority programmes, this should be accelerated through a nationwide programme.
The most efficient way of achieving the programme will be on a street-by-street basis, where homeowners and residents get a personal visit from a trained assessor, and then offered assistance in installing insultation by offering pre-approved suppliers at a reduced, pre-negotiated rate. Subsidy should be offered to homeowners with low incomes. As well as helping to arrange installation, the programme's staff would offer to manage the insulation, overseeing the work so that the resident doesn't need to take any time off work.
Landlords should be compelled to install insulation if the tenants accept the programme, and restricted from immediately raising rental prices.
The programme should be supported by a nationwide communications campaign and local community organising.
The target should be that at least 95% of residential buildings should have adequate insulation by 2020.
@stringfellow - over 10 years ago
Definitely a good start!
I wonder - should we include funding plans as well? Like - estimate cost or means to fund this (either through direct capital raising like tax, or through some sort of feedback like reduced burden on NHS due to extra warmth, for example).
I suppose no-one will take this seriously unless we are able to demonstrate viability.
@frankieroberto - over 10 years ago
@stringfellow I think this can be a general taxation thing. Trying to directly tie the costs of one policy with the savings from another seems a bit mad to me.
Interestingly, the government has actually announced various insulation programmes recently – but I'm not sure it goes as far as this.
The other question is how to mass-insulate old office buildings...
Agreed on the principle here. I think we will get into exact costings and how it's funded later on, with some open-source taxation models, perhaps. For now it's enough to set directions, and I agree with this one. There are questions around solid wall, etc, but this can be refined as we go on.
I've been writing some policy proposals, and I think it's a good idea to keep them as short as possible, and remove extraneous justifications and discussion wherever possible. I also think it's worth staying away from the implementation detail of things like this - paragraph 3 seems too much like design-up-front to me.
@frankieroberto - over 10 years ago
@Floppy I agree in general with staying away from the specifics on implementation, however with a lot of policy, it's the implementation that actually counts (see Chris Huhne: "Policy is implementation" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/15/uk-civil-service-needs-reform).
So whilst paragraph 3 might be too specific, I think that the principles of doing a mass-insulation-programme in a co-ordinated street-by-street basis (rather than relying on homeowners to opt-in piecemeal) should be a central part of the policy.
OK, agreed. Maybe just remove the part about arranging the installation and people not needing time off work, to keep it short and more flexible?
Going to merge this to keep things moving. Refinements can be other PRs :)
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@frankieroberto - over 10 years ago
This should be a no-brainer...