Sustainable Developers Survey

In July 2019 East Herts Council publically made a commitment to tackling climate change. The council’s commitments include helping the whole district to become carbon neutral by 2030. As part of our exploration of how best to tackle climate change, we would like to hear your views on sustainable development in the district.

At the moment, both the construction and use of buildings are responsible for a significant proportion of the UK’s carbon emissions, water consumption and utilisation of raw materials. By encouraging new development in East Herts to reduce its environmental impact further, this will assist in progress towards carbon neutrality.

There are two parts to this survey|:

part 1 requests your views on increasing the development of more highly energy efficient properties in the district
part 2 requests your input into the upcoming Sustainability Supplementary Planning Document.

There are a total of 22 questions and these shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes to answer. Your participation is greatly appreciated. We will collate the findings of this survey for consideration by officers and elected members. All responses will be confidential and will not be publically attributable to your organisation.

Red asterisk denotes a required answer.

Current Part 1 - Energy Efficiency
Part 2 - Sustainability SPD
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Part 1 - Energy Efficiency

We have set ‘sustainability’ as a priority in our Corporate Plan for 2020 -2024. As part of this commitment we are exploring what the barriers are, if any, to increasing the delivery of more highly energy efficient properties in the district. ‘More highly energy efficient properties’ in this context means properties that aim to minimise carbon dioxide emissions during their construction and use, through enhanced insulation standards to the building fabric; increased natural ventilation and illumination; and shading and cooling measures. This also includes measures to ensure an increase in energy efficiency through the use of efficient services to the building, appliances and low-energy lighting/heating.

We welcome your views on the following questions.

1. What is stopping an increased number of more highly energy efficient homes from being built?

Please give us your thoughts on the issues from the list below and rate these in order of importance (with 1 being most important to 7 being least important).

Questions	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Insufficient planning policies	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Building regulations that act against delivery of increased numbers of more highly energy efficient homes	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Affordability of energy efficient materials and/or construction costs	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Viability of the overall scheme if any/an increased number of more highly energy efficient homes are included	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Lack of buyers' appetite/interest for more highly energy efficient homes	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Limited skills and expertise	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Higher cost of maintenance	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Please explain your ratings below

If there are any other reasons, not listed above, please give details below

2. What is stopping an increased number of existing homes from being made more energy efficient by retrofitting?

Please give us your thoughts on the issues from the list below and rate these in order of importance (with 1 being most important to 5 being least important).

Questions	1	2	3	4	5
Building regulations that act against delivery of retrofitting	1	2	3	4	5
Affordability of energy efficient materials and/or construction costs	1	2	3	4	5
Lack of appetite/interest among home-owners for retrofitting	1	2	3	4	5
Limited skills and expertise to carry out retrofitting	1	2	3	4	5
Perceived or actual higher cost of maintenance once retrofitting completed	1	2	3	4	5