Budget blow to zero carbon homes

Plans set out in the Budget renege on promises to be 'the greenest government ever'. The government missed a real opportunity to create new green jobs, meet our carbon reduction targets and pave the way for our low-carbon revolution in the UK.

What our winners need is confidence. It is the one thing that will allow communities, individuals, businesses, social enterprises, entrepreneurs and local governments to work in partnership to affect change and reduce our carbon emissions. This confidence comes from long-term policy, long-term reassurance and long-term targets.

Take for example the watering down of 2016 zero carbon homes policy in yesterday’s Budget. This was a policy that was working. It was stimulating innovation and creativity. Other countries looked to us as a shining example because low-carbon industry in the UK was starting to flourish. You could say just the same about the solar industry.

But yesterday’s announcements added further gloom to the uncertainty created by the early review of feed-in tariffs.

Essentially, there is no longer a zero carbon homes policy and we now have an un-ambitious green investment bank that can’t borrow. From flourish to flounder. What a shame.

(pic: 2003 Ashden award-winners BedZED (Beddington Zero Energy Development) is the UK's largest 'carbon-neutral' eco-village)