Bricks and water: improving water resilience in England
By Angela Smith and Baroness McIntosh
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The Westminster Sustainable Business Forum (WSBF), which is publishing the report this week, conducted a unique study which brought together big players in the housebuilding, water and planning sectors.
Future water shortages in England are a very real possibility. There is a popular perception that England is a rainy, green isle which does not need to be overly concerned about having enough water. But the National Infrastructure Commission’s recent report, Preparing for a drier future, made it clear that by 2050 we will need an extra four billion litres of water each and every day. The scale of the potential supply shortfall could be as high as 22%.
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The government needs to become serious about sustainable development in delivering its ambitious housebuilding targets of 300,000 new homes built per year. Bricks and Water found that housebuilders were frustrated with the fragmented framework within which they were forced to operate. They made it clear to us the importance of consistently applied standards.
That is why we are recommending the government create a new property resilience certificate (PRC) for homes. This would rate our homes on water efficiency, energy performance, flood risk and resilience. The PRC would be the first step in making homebuyers (and private renters) aware of these critically significant factors and they would provide an important first step in driving the development of a market for highly rated homes.
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