Housing Minister Grant Shapps recently re-affirmed his commitment for all new build homes to be zero-carbon from 2016. He also confirmed the work, carried out last year for the previous Government, in creating the 'Fabric Energy Efficiency Standard'.

Is the timescale realistic and what needs to happen to achieve this? Andrew Morphet of Synergy Property Services Ltd comments:

Whilst everyone’s interest has been focused on the election, a hugely important but inevitably, unreported piece of new legislation has been entered into the statute book – a revision to the Building Regulations: This will not be affected by any new Government that is formed.

Householders will soon be able to have the services of a qualified Home Energy Assessor to help them address the problems of CO2 emissions, wasted energy and, therefore, money arising from their energy-inefficient homes if a Government plan is approved.