Business as Usual or Willing to Change?
If the current trends in construction continue, with SHDC taking no inspired leadership when it comes to construction standards, and adopting a position of letting the market lead rather than the community, the prospects for Totnes are decidedly unattractive. Within 10-15 years, one can envisage in another 800-1000 houses having been added to the Totnes and Dartington parishes, with perhaps half as many again added to the rest of the Totnes and District area, all built to the minimum standards permitted at the time. We are fortunate therefore that the Government is taking a proactive stand when it comes to energy performance of new buildings.
By 2016, all buildings are expected be built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 6, an enormous improvement on present-day standards (see table below for the timetable of implementation). However, this may be a very optimistic goal under current practices, and while these standards will tackle energy performance, they do little to deal with the energy embodied in the materials themselves. Cement production, for example, is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions , and materials like PVC, use large amounts of energy and petrochemicals. Before the residents even move in, the carbon footprint generated by the materials is already substantial, yet avoidable. The Code for Sustainable Homes ignores the potential benefits that a change of materials could bring, in terms of the health of the residents, and the health of the local economy.
Under this Business as Usual scenario, most developments will continue to be built by large developers, using materials brought in from wherever in the world they can be sourced most cheaply. The financial gain generated by the developments will be accrued to investors and speculators outside the town, and the community left with the legacy of poor development, the design of which they had no influence over, and none of the financial benefits. Affordable housing will continue to be the exception rather than the rule. Totnes could end up like so much of the rest of the UK, a bland, faceless sprawl, with little open space, and far less character than it has at present. Visitors would have fewer, rather than more, reasons to come to Totnes.
The houses added over that time will have been designed and built on the prevailing assumptions that everyone will own a car, need to travel to work, have no time to grow food, be able to service a large mortgage and desire very little interaction with their neighbours. As this Plan has identified, these are all highly questionable, especially in the current economic situation, where very little is being built, and even the new buildings in the town’s Southern Area are unfinished, and locked up, waiting for an economic ‘bounce-back’ which may or may not happen. It may be that community-led and resourced developments will soon be the only viable model for new housing.
SHDC have set the following goals for building and housing over the next 20 years:
- Affordable homes
- Competitive local economy
- Community vibrancy
- Quality build and natural environment
- Social inclusion (access to services and facilities)
- Climate change (addressing its causes and impacts across the South Hams).
In light of the steadily worsening economic situation, the impacts of volatile oil prices, the energy intensive nature of modern construction materials, the amount of money that current development practices leach from the local economy, and the different demands people will make of buildings in the very near future, we would argue that SHDC will find it impossible to meet these objectives through current practices.
There is, however, another way of considering housing that is more relevant and appropriate to a lower-energy, more localised and self-reliant Totnes. It would be based on the principle of buildings causing the minimum possible harm to the users and to the environment, as well as using any building project as a way to stimulate, diversify and re-skill the local economy.
TTT estimates (see below) that if 50% of materials in all new buildings in the area were locally sourced (timber, clay, straw, hemp, etc) it would bring almost £5 million per year into the economy. The multiple spin-offs from a more localised approach to construction are as much economic as they are ethical. The principles underpinning this new approach can be seen in the proposed Transition Zero Carbon Homes Code.
Co-housing?
Co-housing is the name for a type of housing started in Denmark in the early 1970’s; there are now over 150 cohousing sites worldwide, in both town and country, as new build or conversions, incorporating private, rent-buy and social housing.
Why Co-housing? Contemporary living now includes more single parents, women working, and high numbers of elderly and single people. Many of us face social isolation and a chronic shortage of time/money
How does Co-housing work? All Cohousing has some degree of communal facilities, such as dining & cooking as well as each dwelling still having its own basic equivalent Ecological co-housing provides a more ‘green’ life, with sustainable building methods, sharing of utilities like freezers and washing machines, a common heating system and/or solar panels to reduce bills. It creates car free, more people friendly ‘streets’ and strongly encourages car sharing and other alternative forms of transport.
With shared land use it becomes possible to be more self-sustaining, producing our own fruit and vegetables.
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