ACE

The removal of key words from the proposals to strengthen standards in Parts F and L of the Building Regulations is costing over £700m in savings

An arbitrary decision, made by one Minister in June 2009, is costing the nation approaching three-quarters of a billion pounds. And the public justification he gave directly contradicted all the objective facts provided for him, all of which his fellow Cabinet Ministers had endorsed.

The full scandal behind this wilful perversity has finally come to light over a year on, but only thanks to the refusal by the Freedom of Information Commissioner to put up with a litany of obfuscation which the Minister set in train, to stop the true facts emerging.

The issue concerns a last-minute decision by the government to drop plans to make property owners improve the energy efficiency of the original building, whenever an extension is constructed. Or in the terminology, to avoid expanding the building’s overall “carbon footprint.”

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