Southampton to get 11 zero carbon homes

Southampton City Council have granted planning permission for 11 new zero carbon rated homes.

Radian Housing will build cutting edge carbon neutral homes on unused land at Stoneham Cemetery Road. These homes will be the first in the city to meet the government’s highest environmental impact rating system for sustainable homes, Level 6, and is six years ahead of schedule.

The government’s coding system for sustainable homes awards new homes a ‘star rating’ from one to six, with one being the lowest and six the highest.

Housing Associations currently have to build homes to Level three of the code for projects that receive funding from the government’s Homes and Communities Agency, the levels will continue to rise, finally reaching Level six or ‘zero carbon’ in 2016.

The key features of these zero carbon rated homes are timber frame construction with high performance insulation, centralised Bio Mass wood pellet boiler, individual rainwater harvesting systems, high performance glazing, fully integrated Photovoltaic installation providing electricity for the homes with unused energy sold back to the National Grid and all homes designed to Lifetime Homes standards.

Councillor Peter Baillie, Southampton City Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, said: "These future homes will have much better insulation and lower heat losses and with the vastly improved use of green technologies they will be more sustainable in the widest sense as well as easier to maintain and cheaper to run in the long-term."

"Both residents and the environment will benefit as 30 per cent of the country’s total CO2 emissions come from homes."

Further information:
Southampton City Council