Developers must show zero-carbon ambition, says Ebbs

Nick Ebbs

Very few developers are taking sustainability seriously – something that is “extremely disappointing”.

That was the message from Nick Ebbs, chief executive of East Midlands developer Blueprint, who was speaking at an audience of property professionals at TheBusinessDesk.com lunch event at the City Ground in Nottingham last Friday.

Ebbs, whose Blueprint company is behind sustainable schemes such as Green Street in the Meadows area of Nottingham and the Trent Basin project alongside the banks of the River Trent, said that the low levels of commitment from housebuilders to develop sustainable homes is “a very serious challenge”.

He added: “While it’s true that the volume housebuilders are making a nod to sustainability, they’re still not building zero carbon houses – and this really should be an ambition of theirs. It’s much better than it was 20 years ago, but – in a world that is going to fry – we have to ask ourselves: what on earth are we doing?”

Ebbs said that the drive towards sustainable development has been lost in the rush to build the hundreds of thousands of homes that the Government has outlined are needed in the UK.

“We were making good progress and there were government plans to make a substantial portion of new homes carbon neutral by 2016 – but we’ve stepped back from that.”

Ebbs said he was excited, however, about a plan to turn a huge area of land along the banks of the River Trent into a mixed-use community has been unveiled by Nottingham City Council.

The City Council’s Executive Board has given its approval for a consultation on the Waterside Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) – which sets out the city’s vision for the area and provides planning guidance for future investors and proposals for new developments.

Creating a Waterside regeneration area has been a long-standing ambition for the City Council to create a new sustainable community all the way along the waterside setting from Trent Bridge to Colwick Park, and connecting the city centre and adjoining neighbourhoods including Sneinton and the Meadows.

Ebbs said: “This is an incredibly exciting project. We’ll be fighting hard to make it sustainable and forward-looking.”

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