'Toxic mix' warning on new Shropshire homes
A businessman has warned that within 20 years Shropshire could be blighted by a "toxic cocktail of poorly built houses and a rapidly growing population".
Claus Best, who runs Smart Energy Services in Bayston Hill, near Shrewsbury, said projected population growth coupled with the Government dropping a commitment to make all new homes "carbon neutral" could have severe consequences for the county.
It was revealed earlier this week that the population of Shropshire is expected to grow by 40,000 – the equivalent of four towns the size of Ludlow – over the next 23 years.
In July last year the Government dropped a previous commitment that all new homes should be carbon neutral by this year.
Mr Best, whose company specialises in making homes more energy efficient, said building standards were already slipping below the expectations of the industry itself.
"Insulation standards in the UK have been behind lots of continental countries already anyway and will be sliding back even further now," he said.
"With the new housing stock still being built to lower efficiency standards at least until 2020, this might well mean that the new housing stock will need to update its energy efficiency within the next 10 to 15 years after being built.
"The new housing stock needed is substantial to meet estimated population figures so this could become a toxic cocktail with wide-reaching implications for houses across Shropshire in the future."
At the moment, the population of the county is estimated to be 483,451, with 171,044 living in Telford & Wrekin. But figures released by the Office of National Statistics estimate the population of Shropshire will have grown to 523,327 by 2039, with 184,484 of these living in Telford & Wrekin.
It equates to a 7.9 per cent growth in Telford over the next 23 years and an 8.5 per cent growth across the rest of Shropshire.
But the dropping of the carbon neutral commitment was praised by the Federation of Master Builders.
Sarah McMonagle, the federation's head of external affairs, said: "The UK's new homes have never been so energy efficient but the target for all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016 was overly ambitious.
"The attempt to get down to the 'zero' of 'zero carbon' threatened to impose significant additional costs on small and medium-sized house builders. This would have held back their ability to build more new homes.
"Small local builders typically build more bespoke homes, with a strong focus on quality and high standards of energy efficiency."
