As Britons swelter in the highest temperatures on record, the UK’s substandard and overheating housing is again under the spotlight. Most British homes are unable to keep residents cool in heatwaves and are cripplingly expensive to heat in the winter. By the numbers, we have some of the worst-performing housing stock in Europe. Our homes are poorly insulated and draughty, have virtually no shading and are badly oriented. How did one of the world’s wealthiest economies end up with houses that are so unprepared for extreme weather?
For decades, the British construction industry got away with building scantily insulated, poorly oriented houses. The country was quick to industrialise, so burning cheap coal could take the edge off the coldest days, while summers were cooler than they are now. Compared with our northern and southern European neighbours, Britain’s homebuilders could effectively disregard environmental performance to prioritise other, less prosaic concerns.
