46 INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER


build costs for all developers. In this year’s study, we asked how much they had actually spent to bring new builds up to the new standards. The realities were slightly different to their predecessors’ estimates in 2022. Having had more experience of Part L and F in actual builds, the verdict actually showed the 2022 estimates to be slightly pessimistic, with the largest segment (30% of responses) saying that 1K to 5K increase was the actual cost uplift to reach Parts L and F. However, people saying they had spent 5K to 10K was not far behind at 26%, showing that this is a likely cost for many going forward, until the Future Homes Standard raises the bar considerably higher. We also asked our survey respondents this year whether they were going to be able to pass the cost increases on to customers, in an identical question to 2022’s survey which enabled a direct comparison between the two survey samples. While the uplift in cost per unit had turned out to be better news in reality than last year’s estimates, the ambitions of 77% of our sample in 2022, namely that they would be able to increase house prices to offset the extra build cost, had foundered somewhat on the house price slump of early 2023.


NEW INSIGHTS How hard has it been to measure your carbon reductions and overheating issues across the whole site?


In the event, this year only 60% said that they were going to be able to raise house prices in order to absorb the extra costs.


CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT We asked respondents how they rated the Government’s performance on engaging with project stakeholders, such as consuers and hoebuyers, on the raifi cations of the changes to the Regs. Performance on this area remained lacking, according to our cohort, and suggests a correlation with the earlier fi ndin that hoeowner education reained a roble for compliance. A substantial 67% of respondents said that homebuyers had experienced a ‘poor’ level of engagement by Government on the changes and what they mean. Builders themselves were next worst, with 62%, followed by planners and developers (at 54% and 53% respectively). Manufacturers had fared slightly better, according to our respondents (who were however from the development sector in general), with 61% saying the Government had performed ‘quite well’ or ‘very well’ on engaging with suppliers on these fundamental changes to Building Regs. The pattern of results on this question was similar to that of 2022.


W


e asked a range of additional and reworked questions in this year’s survey. Questions we added in 2023 to add further depth to the study, and cover areas we


didn’t have room for in 2022. CARBON REDUCTIONS


In order to calculate your carbon emissions on a project, you are required to undertake a series of carbon calculations across the whole development site, which is an evolving art and often requires outsourced expertise in order to achieve credible and usable data.


We asked respondents how hard they had found the task of measuring their carbon reductions, but also modelling their overheating potential (in accordance with Part O), across their whole sites (which may vary from single homes to multi- unit developments). The results showed a similar level of ‘extremely challenging,’ ‘quite challenging,’ ‘slightly challenging’ and ‘it’s been no different’ apportioned by respondents across Part L, Part F and Part O, which was again somewhat confusing given that Part O was a brand new standard, and we were asking about measuring overheating as well as carbon emissions.


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