Views of the editor

“Are you doing what you can to reduce your impact on the environment?” This is the question that the East of England Development Agency is asking its key partners, businesses and local communities in the region. Indeed the EEDA’s region has the biggest carbon footprint in the country so it’s small wonder that it says it’s “only by working together to create solutions that this can be reduced.”

The East of England needs to build at least 500,000 homes over the next 15 years in order to meet demand. This growth coupled with climate change impacts, means that designing and building modern, efficient houses is essential.

But the EEDA doesn’t just stop there because in the region there are some 2.3m existing dwellings many of which are old and inefficient and, indeed, many have been around for over 100 years and will probably have to go on providing roofs over peoples heads well into the next century!

So it’s encouraging that the EEDA has invested around £500,000 towards the refurbishment of a stable block at the Building Research Establishment that, hopefully, will provide an exemplar study of how to successfully renovate older buildings using traditional materials, but in a sustainable way!