黑洞社区

The government has revealed that homes using renewable energy provided through the national grid will not qualify as zero-carbon, contrary to previous expectations.

In recently published guidance on the government鈥檚 Code for Sustainable Homes, Communities and Local Government (CLG) decreed off-site renewable sources of energy such as wind farms would not be eligible unless directly connected to a scheme.

It was previously thought that developments would be able to purchase green power from UK offshore and remote wind farms.

Housing minister Yvette Cooper said: 鈥淭he ambition for all new homes to be zero-carbon by 2016 is a challenging one. We need to work in close co-operation with housebuilders and the green technology industry to achieve this.鈥�

John Alker, public affairs manager for the UK Green 黑洞社区 Council, admitted the council had not seen this most recent announcement coming.

鈥淥ff-site is going to have to contribute if we want this to happen by 2016, but we do sympathise with the situation the government is in,鈥� said Alker.

鈥淭he need for the stamp duty deal to be fiscally watertight meant we had to do things this way. The idea of little eco island zero-carbon homes is far too restrictive, but it鈥檚 because the people at the Treasury hadn鈥檛 dealt with these issues before.鈥�

Stamp duty exemption, as announced in this year鈥檚 Budget, now applies to zero-carbon homes that cost less than 拢500 000. Where the purchase price is greater, stamp duty will be reduced by 拢15 000.

鈥淲e think off-site should be included eventually, but we need to work together with the CLG to decide to what extent. We鈥檙e looking into how we can change the definition. We鈥檙e not asking them to scrap the current one.鈥�

The council is currently in the process of setting up a UK Green 黑洞社区 task force to look into the matter in more detail.