A new Building Regulations Standard

[mairteenpak]

Given that the Building Regulations have changed virtually every time some one in the department thinks of themselves, is it not time that, once and for all, a
Standard was set which would serve for at least the next Century?

In the context of Peak Oil and Global warming it would make sense to implement the Passive House Standard for all houses yet to be constructed regardless of whether planning is approved or not.

To date there is often a lag of five years from once building regulations are introduced until they are actually implemented. Hundreds of thousands of houses were built over the last ten years, most of which fell short of the latest published regulations, as new regulations do not apply to developments which already have planning approval.

The additional cost of better houses would be borne by the Land Barons as the market would still pay the same price, which would effectively mean building land would be less valuable.

New regulations governing the size of bedrooms and living areas would also make sense to prevent shoebox or closet bedrooms.

A tax on poorly insulated houses and commercial properties would be a useful device.

Our national energy bill could be cut by 25% going a long way to reducing carbon emmisions, and improving our balance of payments.

[solair]

You're forgetting that that won't benefit property developers so Fianna Fail would absolutely never allow such madness!
Had we implemented new building regulations 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago hundreds of thousands of homes would have been energy efficient.
Instead we had lax and poorly enforced regulations and have built homes with substandard levels of insulation and pretty poor energy efficiency ratings.
We didn't even manage to force developers to put in ducts for future telecommunications requirements missing a prime opportunity to roll out excellent broadband.

It'd be great to implement new regs now, but the opportunity for serious impact has been missed due to FF being either too stupid or too closely connected to builders to be bothered.