Building communities Join the debate

摘要

As a country we desperately need to recognise that building is not just about short-term profit and short-term jobs; it's also about creating the long-term infrastructure of the country - in other words, supporting long-term and sustainable profits and quality, competitive jobs. The poor quality of UK buildings - particularly housing - shapes over half our energy use, ensuring that every householder in the country pays 15-20% more than they should for fuel. On the energy side, the focus on centralised generation leads to inefficient technical outcomes and local planning conflicts. The approach of a central fund proposed under the current allowable solutions consultation will perpetuate industry structures in both energy and construction that are non-competitive globally, and this will come back to bite us, in the same way that it did for state-run manufacturing businesses in the seventies and eighties.