PowerSwitch

The builders said the rules were too onerous and would add to the cost of new homes. Delaying the rules meant they saved about £5,000 per home on average by not having to fit high-grade insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and other green technology.

Their savings have come at a high cost to homeowners, however: the occupiers of the 1.5m new homes built since the rules were scrapped in 2015 will have to expensively retrofit their homes, at an average cost of £20,000 each.

Ed Matthew, the campaigns director at the E3G thinktank, warned the construction industry was likely to try the same special pleading with Labour: “Successive Tory governments caved into the powerful housebuilder lobby, who were major donors to the Conservatives,” he said.

mr brightside wrote: ↑09 Jul 2024, 06:52 Fit them all with a stove and a flue, the new owners will probably need them in the coming decades.