The latest report from the Environmental Audit Committee analyses how government targets can be achieved
The environmental housing report challenges the notion that nature is blocking housing delivery, calling it “lazy”, and instead argues that a healthy natural environment is essential for towns and neighbourhoods.
The report, while supporting government targets, does raise concerns over reforms to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and whether they go far enough to achieve legally binding targets in halting and reversing natural decline.
Several key blockers are identified in the report
The report highlights a lack of cross-government policy alignment and co-ordination, fragmented data systems, and a dearth of ecological, planning and construction skills as major obstacles for building homes.
The report makes several recommendations to the government, including to provide a realistic assessment of the construction workforce and what is needed to deliver the Government’s housing targets for each remaining year of this Parliament. This should include:
- Annual estimates of the number of construction workers needed to meet the Government’s yearly and five-year home building targets.
- The projected natural wastage (i.e. rates of retirement) for each year from the existing workforce, to establish a baseline for recruitment and anticipate the impacts on home building.
- Projections as to how many new recruits are expected to join the construction workforce, after adequate training that focusses on building residential properties.
- Possible contingencies, for each year, if existing and projected workforce levels are insufficient to deliver annual housing targets.
- Set out an analysis of the skill set the Government believes will be required to deliver 1.5 million homes, in line with climate and biodiversity targets. This should include an analysis of any significant gaps and how they will be addressed, in addition to:
- Skills required to install sustainable building materials.
- Digital skills and tools to improve efficiency and support the measurement and reduction of embodied and operational carbon.
- Skills and knowledge to maximise the development of brownfield sites for housing.
- Skills needed to retrofit existing housing stock, to meet environmental and net zero standards.
- An ability to work with ecologists and planning professionals to ensure optimum environmental and nature-based outcomes and support key policies such as Biodiversity Net Gain. (Recommendation, Paragraph 218)
The Royal Institute of British Architects applauds the report
RIBA president, Chris Williamson, said: “With climate talks continuing at COP30 in Belem, we welcome this timely report from the Environmental Audit Committee, which echoes many of the recommendations RIBA has long championed.
“The committee rightly recognises the urgent need for regulation to drive down embodied carbon, and we now need the government to bring forward the consultation on this topic, promised by the previous administration. A clear direction of travel for reducing embodied carbon would give developers and investors much-needed certainty and help build a robust market for lower-carbon materials.
“The report also highlights the need for a skilled workforce to deliver the government’s housing and net zero ambitions. Architects will play a central role in this transformation, which is why the recent decision to defund Level 7 apprenticeships runs counter to the government’s own agenda.
“There is an urgent need to reduce the carbon impact of our built environment. We look forward to working with the committee and government to deliver this.”
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