The School of the Built Environment ‘Centre for the Built Environment’ (CeBE) has been working with the National Trust on the Stamford Brook housing project, a development of 710 new houses on National Trust land at Dunham Massey, near Altrincham, Cheshire. The development is a unique partnership between the National Trust, Redrow Homes and Bryant Homes which will release valuable revenue for the upkeep of the Dunham Massey Estate, in addition to providing much needed housing for the area. CeBE staff have been giving technical advice on how to build the houses in an energy-efficient way.

Daily Telegraph article

The results of the Executive Summary report were featured in the Daily Telegraph on 18 February 2008.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/18/eahomes118.xml

The report concludes: "Even when one tries hard, current mainstream housing processes are unlikely to deliver, on a consistent basis, housing that meets the demands of low and zero carbon performance standards for 2016 and beyond." The report, 'Lessons from Stamford Brook: Understanding the gap between designed and real performance', concludes that the reasons for this are "deeply embedded in the culture, processes and practice at all levels of the house building industry."

The authors, from Leeds Metropolitan University and University College, London, conclude: "The task that is before us in the UK and, so it would seem, others elsewhere, is to bring about fundamental change in the way houses (and other buildings for that matter) are built." They say a "fundamentally different way" of building is required, based on rigorous testing for all new homes until they are really as warm and draught-free as the building standards say they should be.

BBC Countryfile interview

The project was featured on the BBC's Countryfile, screened on Sunday 16 March 2008, when John Craven interviewed Professor Malcolm Bell as they toured the site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/countryfile/

Professor Malcolm Bell was interviewed by Nicky Campbell about the project on the BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast programme on Tuesday 26 February 2008 at 6:55am.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/breakfast.shtml

Malcolm Bell (MB)
There is quite a clear gap between what we think we are achiveing in terms of the energy standards and what we measure when we actually look at the houses both in use and actually measuring heat loss directly, so there's a set of issues that the industry needs to grapple with and that's really what the research was all about, trying to look at how we do that.

Nicky Campbell (NC)
This phrase 'zero carbon' which comes up all the time, what does it mean?

MB
There are quite a few people asking the same question in the industry I think. The idea of zero carbon is that every energy consumption that comes from a source such as electricity which is based on fossil fuels is reduced to as low a level as possible and then the residual energy that you need for washing machines and so on is produced from an electricity supply that is from a renewable resource and therefore is carbon-free. So the idea is that you can demonstrate that your house actually is zero carbon based upon renewable energy but also reducing the energy that you demand through heating, hot water and so on.

NC
So is the road to ecological nightmare paved with good intentions, but built with houses with good intentions which aren't quite working out?

MB
Well, I think the good intentions are very important. I think the symbolic significance of a zero carbon target is absolutely vital. The key is now in the next ten years, how do we learn how to make sure that what we want to achieve in theory is achieved on the ground.

NC
... is not merely symbolic, that's the problem.

MB
I think it's symbolic at this stage in the sense that it drives everybody down that route and the industry I thinks seems to be extremely committed to trying to achive it. The key question is how do we do it and how do we make sure that we've done it when we say we have. The work we did at Stamford Brook was really trying to have a look at what happens when you try and build these houses at scale in a commercial context, so that everyone can learn the right lessons.

NC
And in short, how do we do it?

MB
I think what we do is that we look very hard by measuring energy consumptions, measuring in use, but also measuring through various testing of the fabric and so on, feeding back that to the builders and ensuring that they try and address some of both the technical problems, but also the procedural problems in terms of the way we go about designing, the way we go about constructing and the way we actually produce a sort of continous feedback loop that means that we are always improving so that we gradually get to the zero carbon target.