Design adviser says most new schemes fail sustainability test

The Government's built environment and design adviser has criticised most developers and architects for paying only lip service to sustainable principles.

That critique has come from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment after an assessment of the schemes its design review teams have considered over the last two years.

CABE has complained of a "piecemeal approach to sustainability" and argued that only a handful of sizeable schemes and master plans on the drawing board, in planning or actually in existence, could be seen places designed for sustainability.

It lists the following as the exceptions which prove the rule: One Gallions in Newham east London; Middlehaven in Middlesbrough; BedZED in Sutton, south London; New Islington in east Manchester; Waterlooville, Hampshire and Southall gasworks in Ealing, West London.

In a related but separate development a new coalition of housing and environmental groups has called for urgent action to cut carbon emissions from existing homes.

The group, which includes the Energy Saving Trust, the Housing Corporation, Green Alliance, the UK Green Building Council, the Sustainable Development Commission and WWF, has called for a major programme of 'exemplar' refurbishments which could see 500,000 homes converted to low-energy dwellings within five years.

The refurbishment programme could include whole streets in areas where there are high levels of fuel poverty, the Existing Homes Alliance has suggested.

Read the CABE news page

Roger Milne

5 June 2008