Poor building standards add £1,000 to energy bills of new homes, analysis finds

The government is planning revised regulations for the 1.5m homes it is aiming to build by mid-2029, but campaigners and experts are worried that its energy-saving and low-carbon requirements will be weakened. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

People living in newly built homes are being hit with energy bills that are nearly £1,000 a year higher than need be because of the poor standards to which they have been constructed.

Occupants of homes built in the past seven years have paid about £5bn more in energy bills than they would have if regulations requiring new homes to be low-carbon had not been scrapped in 2016, according to analysis seen by the Guardian.