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Wellbeing in buildings


Laying good foundations


The human and financial cost of poor quality housing in the UK has been starkly exposed by the recent white paper published by the Healthy Homes and Buildings Parliamentary Group. Nigel Coston, technical director, Zehnder Group UK refers to the white paper as he explores where the solution can be found and how the foundations for healthier homes can be laid.


T


he statistics are alarming – with total social and economic costs estimated to be at least £18.6 billion


each year. Furthermore, recent building improvement initiatives focussed on energy efficiency may have inadvertently taken us a step further away from healthy homes rather than led the charge forward.


Fixing a problem


The white paper is careful to avoid singling out just one aspect of the industry or its governance. Instead it sees fault as being spread across all involved, revealing that from the nuts and bolts of installing to the machinery of government, there has been a lack of focus on creating healthy homes.


New houses


Applauding the government’s commitment to build 300,000 new homes every year, the report is quick to emphasise that more of the same will not be adequate. It makes the clear recommendation that priority is given to ensuring “people’s health and wellbeing is foremost when building new homes. There should be increased focus on delivering quality and performance alongside delivery of greater numbers of new homes”. This should be based not just on concerns about energy efficiency. It must involve a more holistic view which considers factors such as light, heat, ventilation, space and noise.


Building regulations


There is a need for better and more consistent Building Standards and regulations. Misalignments between central Government, devolved governments and local authorities do not make financial or practical sense. New standards should focus on


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optimum, not minimum, standards. And they should be centred on maximising occupant health and wellbeing.


Renovations


The report calls for making “the renovation of current housing stock an infrastructure priority” and developing “plans for retrofitting that takes a holistic approach to maximising health and wellbeing”. It specifically emphasises that


renovations should avoid past mistakes of creating energy efficient homes that are prone to overheating and poor indoor air quality because they lack the necessary ventilation.The paper also estimates that 85% of homes in the UK will still exist in 2050, so renovation is critical to achieving healthier homes and buildings. The Government currently lacks a


strategy for improving existing homes. This is despite the fact that current modelling suggests that if 2% of homes were renovated every year, we could halve the number of unhealthy homes by 2050.


Private Rental Sector (PRS)


Current incentives available for energy efficiency are simply creating further problems as there are no measures being taken to assess the impact of a rented home to occupant health. Greater interventions in and incentives for the PRS are needed to counterbalance this. To monitor conditions, a Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) assessment should be undertaken on a property when a new tenancy agreement commences.


Common themes


The Healthy Homes and Buildings report remarks regularly on the need for a


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‘holistic approach’. It’s critical to find solutions which look at the complete health and wellbeing of the intended occupants at their centre. The approach must ‘holistically’ consider and address factors such as ventilation, air quality, lighting and acoustics in addition to energy efficiency. There is a need for improvement


throughout the entire construction sector, and for the government to create more appropriate building regulations and formulate a strategy that will influence consultants, home builders, architects, surveyors, installers and the general public. We lack sufficient housing stock and the new builds and renovations currently being undertaken rarely have the ‘holistic’ aim of a healthy home at their heart. The specific proposals the report makes will no doubt be debated, but this debate now rests on the bedrock of belief that something must be done. We have ignored the dangers of our indoor living space for far too long. Now is the time to make significant changes and ensure the air in our homes is breathable again.


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