De Burca succeeds in having higher energy efficiency standards adopted in new Marlton Area Plan
At a recent meeting of Wicklow County Council, Green Party councillor Deirdre de Burca was successful in having an amendment adopted which agreed much higher energy efficiency standards for the new Development Plan relating to the Marlton Area outside Wicklow Town.
De Burca’s amendment proposed that all new buildings developed under the Plan would be 60% more energy efficient than required by current Building Regulations, and that at least 30% of each building’s space and water heating requirements would be met from renewable energy supply systems.
The Green Party councillor pointed out that the need to make houses more energy efficient was now extremely urgent given the rising prices of gas, oil and electricity and a looming energy crisis. She said that local authorities had a central role to play in ensuring that new developments were as energy efficient as possible.
“This is particularly important where local authorities are directly providing social and affordable housing,” said de Burca. “Low income families who will live in these houses will be very vulnerable to ‘fuel poverty’ and to the crippling effect of rising energy prices unless local authorities build these houses to be as energy efficient as possible”.
De Burca expressed her disappointment that the developer of the Marlton lands had objected to the higher energy efficiency standards she had proposed on the grounds that they were “too onerous”. She also rejected the recommendation which had been made by the County Manager that the higher energy efficiency standards she proposed should be significantly weakened.
“I had to work very hard to convince my fellow-councillors not to weaken the energy efficiency standards proposed,” said de Burca. “I was lucky that they were open to listening to the very strong arguments in favour of higher energy-efficiency standards. They heard that the Directive on the Energy Rating of Buildings will take effect in Ireland in January 2007 and that houses with better energy ratings will be much more valuable and much cheaper to run than the average home that is being built at the moment. I would like to acknowledge the cross-party support which my amendment received and I believe that the future residents of the Marlton Local Area Plan Area will have every reason to be grateful to the elected representatives for making the enlightened decision they made today”.
