Warning over new homes carbon plan

According to the National Trust, a study of a housing development on Trust land near Altrincham, Cheshire, showed large scale building could deliver high environmental standards on water and energy consumption.

But the project also revealed there were currently a number of obstacles, ranging from gaps between predicted energy conservation in the design and actual performance to a lack of labour and environmentally sustainable products in the UK.

The National Trust said a strong sense of direction from the Government and wholehearted support from the construction industry was "vital" if the 2016 zero-carbon targets were to be met.

Some 700 homes are being built in the Stamford Brook development on land formerly part of the Dunham Massey estate, in a scheme which aims to fund the upkeep of the stately home and land, but which has attracted controversy.

The site, on which around 250 homes have been completed, does not include microgeneration renewables such as wind turbines or solar panels and therefore cannot be zero-carbon.

But the homes are built to high energy standards using sustainable materials, while the development has been laid out with a high proportion of green spaces, footpaths, cycle routes and wildlife corridors, the National Trust said.

In order to plan for flooding risk, climate change projections over 100 years were used and Sinderland Brook, which runs through the area, has been restored to a meandering stream with its natural floodplain.

According to the report by the Trust and construction firms Bryant Homes and Redrow Homes, one of the major challenges for sustainable buildings was the lack of suitable products.

For instance, wooden-framed double-glazed windows had to be sourced from Scandinavia for the first phase of building because of a lack of availability within in the UK. And prohibitive costs have led to the abandoning of the product in favour of the less-environmentally friendly uPVC windows for the following stages.