The Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA) is a UK-wide collaboration of organisations – including the IHBC – that acts as a forum for sustaining and improving traditional buildings, and its recent update headlines key issues for many IHBC members interested in how we engage with traditional building issues and sustainability.
- STBA is hosting a workshop ‘Heritage, Environment & Industry: Common Ground and Conflicts’ on 29 November in London.
This will narrow down the issues to be discussed to enable practical progress for the sustainability of older buildings. Venue: The Foundry, 5 Baldwin Terrace, London N1 7RU. This event is open to our Members (free) and Supporting Organisations (£25+VAT) – Bookings open soon via Eventbrite - Each Home Counts Workstreams – Getting Involved.
The STBA is engaging with several of the Each Home Counts workstreams. We are working to ensure that the particular needs of traditional buildings are included. Nigel Griffiths serves on the Standards Group. Sam Allwinkle on Training. Nick Heath on Design & Installation. We would be interested to hear from our members who are attending other groups – if you are involved, please let Nigel know. - Private Rented Sector Legislation.
From April 2018 it will become illegal to let out a property with an EPC rating worse than ‘E’. The PRS guidance for non-domestic properties has already been published and is available here. The Domestic guidance has been drafted but not yet published. There is a particular issue relating to whether or not listed buildings are legally exempt from the requirement to have an EPC at the point of sale or let. Resolution of this issue rests with DCLG but we understand that their efforts are currently focused on dealing with the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster and it may yet be some time before they produce a further guidance note on listed buildings. - APPG for Healthy Homes and Buildings: Consultation period for Green Paper.
The second meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Healthy Homes and Buildings was held in July and was attended by several of our members including NBT and the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products. The agenda for this meeting was to discuss the role and purpose of the APPG and its objectives for the coming parliament. This includes the preparation for a Healthy Homes and Buildings Green Paper (Building our Future Laying the Foundations for Healthy Homes and Buildings). A draft of this is available to download. - Date for your diary – 20 February 2018: STBA Advisory Group Meeting, London.
Our members and Supporting Organisations are invited to join us to discuss priorities for 2018. We shall outline our plans for the future and look forward to receiving your input on what is important for the year. This will be held, as usual, at our offices in Islington.
