Green Plan Delayed By Environmentalists

THE Dutch Government has made a significant amount of money available in order to provide additional insulation to around 2.5 million homes but there’s a problem!

Whilst everyone is anxious to get this programme moving, there is likely to be considerable delay due to the rules concerning the protection of bats, birds such as swifts and animals which may be roosting or living in the roofs or walls of these same houses.

The first target was to arrange for insulation for the estimated 1.5 million houses which are near the bottom of the energy label table which runs from A to G but there is considerable debate on how to check the properties involved.

Environmentalists argue that each property needs to be reviewed individually but this will be a very time consuming operation, especially as there is a shortage of trained ecologists needed to undertake the inspections.

Some councils and trade bodies argue that it should be sufficient to carry out spot checks around neighbourhoods which consist of similar properties but this has already been challenged in court by an ecologists group.

With cold winters and high fuel prices, there is a definite financial as well as environmental need to make it cheaper to heat houses with the resulting reduction in the use of electricity but trained ecologists are scarce and don’t come cheap so the cost of installing insulation could be double or treble the original estimates.

Another problem is that the ecologists are not content with the proposal that a camera should be used to check for ‘lodgers’ and a decision made as they argue that there should be separate observations over a period of time to see whether any creature can be observed entering or exiting the property.

Isolerend Nederland (Venin) represents insulation companies around Holland and is understandably taking a close interest in this matter and has even suggested putting up nesting boxes in areas to be worked on.

They are already in discussion with the Dutch Housing Ministry in an attempt to find a workable solution as once the worst of the low insulation properties are completed, there will be some 1 million council owned properties which need to be worked on as well.