Month: March 2012

Of the summaries of the recently published National Planning Policy Framework that I've read, I like and broadly agree with the findings of this one published by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. Whilst the Government appears to have listened to the many concerned voices raised in response to the draft document, the continued insistence on easing planning controls to promote growth remains a troubling key theme of reform and increasingly a political plaything. The CPRE's official response from Chief Executive Shaun Spiers is this: ‘We were very reassured that the Minister, Greg Clark recognised the intrinsic value…

I last commented on the national planning policy framework back in December and it's being published today. The presumption in favour of 'sustainable development' remains and therefore so does the need I'd commented on earlier to properly define what we mean by 'sustainable development'. I like this quote from Craig Bennett Friends of the Earth's campaigns director: [the new regulations] must spell out what is meant by 'sustainable development' - to ensure the right buildings are built in the right place and in the best interests of local people and our environment. ...and the Campaign To Protect Rural England, The…

My current main indoor job is painting the door frames & linings that are still in their original state - untreated timber linings and white coated MDF architraves. Here are a couple pictures of them in their 'before' state. I suspect there won't be a great deal of visual difference 'after' as all I intend to do is paint the door frames & linings white and leave the doors as they are, but we'll see. I'm using Little Greene undercoat and eggshell paint following some advice I received via Twitter user @CharlieBudd, so far it seems to be a nice…

Climate Change Minister Greg Barker had plenty to say about the Green Deal in his speech at the Ecobuild conference in London yesterday. The full text of the speech is available on the The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) website. My summary is: Confirmation that the Deal will be launched this autumn. Not only aimed at 'a whole range of home improvements beyond insulation'... The Green Deal will act as a catalyst to stimulate innovation so that more and more energy savings products come to the market. Interesting statistics: The UK building stock was responsible for 43% of…

I've been keeping an eye on the Raspberry Pi for a while now. What’s a Raspberry Pi? The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming As someone with a history of fiddling with computers since the ZX81 in the early 1980's the Pi held an immediate appeal…

I've been rattling on about the barns roof trusses / A-frame a fair bit recently, both on the forum and the roof post in my Anatomy of... series. Well here's quite a nice photograph of the real thing... For reference, the photograph shows the right hand side of the two furthest trusses that you can see on the ‘before’ photograph contained in the Anatomy of... post linked to above.

Looks like recent negative speculation over the Green Deal may be well-founded. We now learn that Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has confirmed that the secondary legislation for the Green Deal will be delayed. The secondary legislation (the instrument through which the government is able to make changes to the law without having to pass a new Act of Parliament) was originally due in "early 2012" now it should be expected by the "summer recess" at the end of July - just two months before the 1st of October launch date of the Green Deal. No explanation for the delay…

Fake Arabia meets Carmarthenshire sunshine... a rare and beautiful thing... (Sitting on my newly tiled window sills.)

It looks like the politicians and energy companies are starting to pull at the seams of the Green Deal. The energy companies have delayed implementation of the funding framework that will underpin the Green Deal with its core concept of funding environmentally beneficial home improvements through energy bills. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are remaining silent in the face of calls to make correspondence about this issue a matter of public record - in response to Shadow Climate Change Minister Luciana Berger's request Energy Minister Gregory Barker, commented that "we believe that release of this information would…

With the Green Deal, due to be launched later this year, I thought that an update was in order since I last mentioned it back in March 2011. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) describe the Green Deal as follows: The Energy Act 2011 includes provisions for the new 'Green Deal', which intends to reduce carbon emissions cost effectively by revolutionising the energy efficiency of British properties. The new innovative Green Deal financial mechanism eliminates the need to pay upfront for energy efficiency measures and instead provides reassurances that the cost of the measures should be covered by…