Kits and Mortar

In the closing hours of Grand Designs Live, I finally got a chance to get up close and personal to The House That Kevin Built. It was a lot of fun to get in there and have a look round, especially as I was one of the last allowed in, so I got the place to myself for a while, hence the huge number of photos.

Here you can see right up and under the cladding.

And the rain screen from the lower, unrendered parts of the ModCell storey.

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By the end of Friday, the seventh day, the Kevin’s house was starting to look complete. The roof was waterproof and complete with skylights. Windows were in and glazed, and the cladding applied to the sides of the house.

The cladding panels for the upper half of the house were made on site by a computerised flatbed router. I suspect that they could be a fabulous habitat for bees, and possibly house martens too, as they provide a nice sheltered space under the slats for nest-building. I’m not sure that was the intention though…

How many camera folk does it take to do a practice run of a piece to camera? Six, it would seem. I love the camera on the enormous boom - that’s how they get those fabulous, swoopy shots.

By the end of the day, the scaffolding was down and the house was revealed in all it’s glory.

And from certain angles, you can start to get a feel for how this would look if it were in a residential setting, instead of on a patch of grass in between a massive exhibition hall and a hotel.

I was so excited that I happpened to be around for the topping out ceremony of The House That Kevin Built. Kevin McCloud explained to the assembled crowd that a ‘topping out’ ceremony is held when the highest point of a structure has been put up. The builders take up a leafy sprig of oak, or whatever wood has been used in construction, and nail it to the very apex of the structure.

In this case, they had a sheaf of thatch prepared so that it could stand up upon the top of the roof. Kevin joked that it was the responsibility of the youngest and handsomest of the builders to top out, but that that wasn’t him. Youngest, maybe not, but I’d argue about handsomest.

Of course, a libation has to be made which, along side the offering of the sheaf, is intended to thank the gods, goddesses and spirits of forest and field for giving up their bounty to allow the building of the house.

Bottles of champers were distributed amongst the build crew, liberally shaken and then opened.

Despite protestations from the producer that Health & Safety would have a fit if there was any drinking on-site, a toast is made, and the topping out ceremony is complete.

He smiled just after this, honest.

Throughout Grand Designs Live, Kevin McCloud and a team of builders, celebrities, and TV crew built a house in the Grand Village, with ModCell’s straw bales panels and vertical thatch on the ground floor, and the Facit building system used for the first floor and roof. Although I missed the very first stages of building, I kept as much of an eye on the house as possible.

The original brief was pretty simple:

To design and build a sustainable house, using traditional materials and techniques alongside cutting-edge 21st century technology which underpins [Kevin's] green principles.

When I arrived, on the morning of Day 4, the bottom storey, built by ModCell, was already complete and work had started on Facit’s half. The straw bales panels were all in place, but had not all been lime rendered. The glazing and window/door frames were also absent, but you could already get a sense of how the house was doing to look.

One panel was clad in vertical thatch. I heard that this was the first time that vertical thatch had ever been used in the UK, and whilst it looks kinda cool I have my doubts about it. Firstly, the individual stalks of thatch come out really easy, and are very tempting to pull at for the fidgety-fingered. This leads me to believe that the thatch would thin out very quickly, and the more thatch is pulled out, the less tightly packed the remaining straw or reed is, and the easier that comes out… Secondly, it would be a haven for small insects and spiders, which is fine on the outside, but less keen on that internally.

The other side of the house, showing rendered ModCell panels and one left open for later glazing.

The second storey, supplied by Facit goes up really quickly.

The Accoya wood doors and windows, from Westgate Joinery, go in. Accoya is basically softwood that has been treated with acetic anhydride at temperature and under pressure to give it the properties of hardwood. This means that it can be sustainably sourced, and the treatment makes it incredibly durable. I had a chat with a chap who was a real Accoya fan, and he told me that the manufacturer’s guarantee is 30 years, with the importer adding another 10 onto that - that’s showing a fair amount of confidence! This build was the first time he’d seen Accoya in the flesh, as it were, and he was getting really quite excited about it.

I have to say, the idea of a sustainable hardwood substitute really is quite exciting because it would reduce the need to cut down slow-growing hardwoods or use environmentally unkind treatments for softwoods, all of which is much better for the planet. Even the by-product of the hardening process is recyclable - it’s acetic acid, or as we usually call it, vinegar. Not that you’d want to put this vinegar on your chips…

The build progresses, and the roof goes on.

The holes at the top are for piping in insulation.

Work goes on inside, hidden away from nosey bloggers, sadly.

The Facit panels for the apex of the roof are so light that they could actually be carried by one person.

Kevin McCloud setting up for recording.

Kevin indulges in a bit of pole dancing.

Kevin does his piece to camera. I wasn’t close enough to be able to hear what he was saying, but I asked Finlay White from Modcell about the panel that he’s standing in front of, as I really couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be. Apparently, it’s a silica aerogel window which soaks up solar heat during the day and releases it during the night. According to the Channel 4 site, this particular panel was of Cabot Nanogel.

More photos in the next post!

Right at the end of Grand Designs Live, as the exhibition was shutting up shop, I finally got the chance to have a look around the House That Kevin Built (big post to come about that soon!). Whilst I was snapping photos, I got to talk to Finley White from ModCell, whose company put up the bottom half of the house.

The ModCell bits are the ground floor panels you can see either rendered or, on the left-hand wall, glazed to show the straw off. Glazing the panels is not normal practice, but it was nice to be able to see the straw inside in this instance. Essentially, these are wooden frames (sustainably sourced, of course) that have been filled with straw bales and then rendered with a lime render, making them super-insulating and vermin-proof. All this is done in a ‘flying factory’ near to the build site using local materials to reduce the amount of transportation required.

The panels can then be assembled very quickly and easily on-site and as they are already rendered, the structure can be made water-tight very easily. Finlay also explained to me that builders generally dislike having straw bales kicking about as they have to be kept bone dry throughout the build, have a tendency to shed straw which then gets everywhere, and are a bit of a pain in the neck. ModCell, on the other hand, deals with all the straw away from the build, keeping the site tidy. As all the rendering is done in the ‘factory’, you’re also less at the mercy of the weather - joy to any British self-builder’s ears.

I was really impressed with the idea, and it’s a real shame that I didn’t get to talk to ModCell earlier in the week as I would have loved to have done some video with them. They have lots more information on their website, including a load of photos from the Grand Designs build.

I’ve had a bit of an insanely stressful and busy week. A month or so ago I agreed to write an article for a magazine about social networking, having forgotten just how stressed I get when I have to write formal articles for people, and why it was that I gave up doing it for a living many years ago. Blogging is so much easier, more immediate, simpler. So I’m afraid I’ve had my nose in that all week, with little time for thinking about Kits and Mortar.

But whilst I was searching for something else in my personal blog’s archives yesterday, I came across an old post from 2005 talking about Grand Designs, and caravan holidays and self-building.

One of my favourite TV programmes is Grand Designs, a Channel Four production that follows people following their house-building dreams. Tonight, the programme followed a couple who had bought a derelict church in County Mayo, Ireland, and were restoring and converting it to a house. Amongst a slew of really crap house design shows, Grand Designs stands out as the one with serious taste and standards. No MDF. No lurid colours. No shock-value interiors. Just people trying their hardest to realise their dreams.

Watching tonight, I found myself filled with wonder at how beautiful the building was, how picture-perfect the scenery, and how fantastic it would be to wake up every day in a building with such soul. The photos can only give a glimpse of how beautiful it must actually be.

It’s funny how little has changed in the last three years, except, perhaps that I can now imagine myself building a house. Then, I couldn’t.

If you’re looking for a quick build that’s a little different, why not live in a shipping container? Already waterproof, and able to be sited almost anywhere that’s flat - only the corners rest on the ground so you don’t need to lay lots of concrete - you can whip up a container house in no time. I had a look round an empty 20ft container on the Lendon Containers stand, and they are surprisingly large with a lot more headroom than I expected. A bit long and thin, perhaps, but join a few together and there’d be more than enough space. And they can easily be stacked - containers on ships are often piled up to 14 high - so there’s no problem if you want a two storey house.

Price-wise, they’re not all that expensive. The nice chap from Lendon said they went for £4k for a 20ft (if my memory serves) although you can probably get them on eBay cheaper if you want to fit and install them yourself. I’m not sure how much a whole build would cost, if you were to make an entire house out of them, but I suspect it’s much more affordable than bricks and mortar.

Indeed, GDL had three containers decked out as a bedroom, lounge and full bedsit, and stacked three high just to show you how easy it is. Sort of like giant, habitable lego. The beat-up exteriors look great in an urban setting, but if you’re out in the countryside do you really want a heap of rust in your garden? Well, that’s easily fixed - containers lend themselves well to being clad in whatever material you want, and you can even put a living roof on them to soften the angular look even further.

The bedroom container was bigger than our bedroom is here, and although it was a bit longer and narrower, they got more furniture in than we can, so a container wins in the “vs our flat” challenge. Standard width and height is 8ft by 8ft 6 ins, and length can be 10 ft, 20 ft or 40 ft. One day I’ll have to work out what our flat’s square footage is, so I can do a proper comparison.

The lounge container is probably smaller than our lounge, but then, ours has a kitchen in it too. Put two containers together and whip out the middle wall and you’d be laughing, though. Containers can be well insulated - although there’s a trade off as the thicker the insulation the more space you lose inside - and can have windows, doors, shelving and air-conditioning fitted, so they’re easy enough to turn into a useful space.

And if you want a speedy guest bedsit, or you want to live on-site whilst you’re building your house, there’s just enough room in a 20ft container to do that.

I was thinking the other night… ok, fantasising, if I’m honest… that what I’d do would be to have a container on-site to securely store all the materials that come early, to keep them dry and safe from acquisitive hands, and then once the build was done, move it to the back garden, clad it in cedar or something else that looks nice, bung a living roof on top, and bingo - instant garden shed!

As a special treat for Alex over at Shedworking, I thought I’d take a quick look at some of the sheds on offer at Grand Designs Live last week.

This GlassPod is the same glass structure that was included in the Grand Village. It’s incredibly sleek, providing lovely views of your garden or the countryside (if you have such a view), but I felt very exposed when I was inside it, like a goldfish in a bowl. I can imagine that if you don’t have the room to give this a lot of clear space around it, it could end up being very ugly. And of course, glass is a two-edged sword: If you can see out you can see in, so anything you put in here is going to be on view to the world. Probably not ideal for shedworking.

This Jörnträhus shed has a classic Scandinavian design, all warm wood with a sauna-esque feel. Add some gingham curtains, though, and I’d be forever waiting for Heidi to pop her head out of the door and ask if I want some goats cheese (and yes, I know Heidi was Swiss!). Stylistically, I’m not sure how a shed like this would fit into the English landscape or with most English architecture. If you’re building a log cabin, then perhaps you could get away with this in your garden, but it’s a bit clichéd for my taste.

Now on to the pièce de résistance, Rooms Outdoor and their, well, room outdoors. Not the cheapest of sheds, it has to be said (I can’t remember exactly how much it cost - I think it was around £16k), but the Haus+ certainly is a cut above the rest. It comes with a kitchenette and separate toilet, creating a space that is practical enough to work in all day, or to even carry a sofa bed if you want to use it as a guest room.

The Haus+ had plenty of room to relax and work, and didn’t feel as cramped as the Jörnträhus did. Rooms Outdoor had their display kitted out more like a conservatory or second lounge than an office, but if you removed some of the furniture there’d be loads of space for mundane things like book shelves and filing cabinets, or whatever else you want in your office.

Having the kitchenette is a really nice touch - it makes the room just that little bit more self-sufficient, so you don’t have to keep trotting back and forth to your house if you want a cuppa. And of course, a loo is a very pragmatic and useful addition.

Indeed, I really loved the Haus+. I could imagine having one of these at the bottom of the garden, my little unwired escape pod where I could go to hide from the internet, read a book, maybe even write a book. All I need now is a garden to put it in.

Even though Grand Designs Live finished on Sunday, I still have enough photos and thoughts for about another ten blog posts. One of the companies that I was very keen to talk to before the show ended was Carpenter Oak, who were demonstrating on the Traditional Build Techniques stand. If you’re a Grand Designs fan, you may have heard of Carpenter Oak (or their sister company, Carpenter Oak & Woodland) as they designed and built the timber frame for the beautiful Argyll house. The two companies used to be one, but diverged so that Carpenter Oak could specialise in new builds and Carpenter Oak & Woodland could focus on restoration work.

I absolutely love green oak framed buildings, with all the oak exposed and wonderful big double height spaces. Although I say that this blog is about finding out what sort of a house Kevin and I want to build, I will admit to a prior bias towards green oak. It’s beautiful, environmentally friendly, warm and full of personality - a much needed antidote to the soulless places I’ve lived for much of my life. So I was delighted to get the opportunity to talk to Glen, below on his shaving horse, about oak framed houses.

In the first part, we discuss types of builds, spiders. how environmentally friendly green oak is, sustainability, where the oak comes from.

And in part two, Glen tells me about the frame they had on the stand, how much it costs and what its fate will be:

If I had the opportunity to build a green oak house tomorrow, I’d jump at it. For the moment, though, I can only dream.

Chair: Max Fraser
Speakers: Dr Douglas Parr (Greenpeace), Gary Freedman (Ecotricity), Stuart Motford (The Planning Portal)

Douglas Parr, Greenpeace
Have to see the energy system through lens of climate change; defining issue at the moment. If some of the not terribly wild predictions come to pass, ExCeL will be under water.

What do we need to do? Three pronged strategy: use energy more efficiently; use renewable energy; use decentralised energy, electricity generated close to point of use because then don’t lose all the power you currently do in transmission. When you do burn fossil fuels, you can use the heat you waste when you normally produce electricity and use it for the heat we need on an everyday basis. Isn’t it crazy that you have a boiler at home, but when we generate electricity in a power station we chuck away all that heat into cooling towers? Heat we waste in cooling towers pretty much matches the heat we need for housing in the UK. If we generated energy closer to where we needed, we’d be able to use that heat.

EfficienCity, brings some idea of reality to what it would be like to live in such an energy efficient, decentralised, renewable word. All sorts of examples on the city, e.g. a Brewery, hospital, leisure centre, as well as housing.

Video about combined heat and power (CHP) plant at Scottish & Newcastle Royal Brewery in Manchester - full details on website so I won’t transcribe the video here, just click on East Zone, then Brewery. But in short, the burnable waste from the brewery is used as fuel for the CHP plant. The scheme will reduce their carbon footprint by 87%.

There are working examples around the UK. This model illustrates examples from around the world, e.g. housing in Malmo, Sweden. These examples do exist and they show that even your average city can produce quote a lot of low and zero carbon energy.

But, once this energy goes outside your own building, [i.e. when selling back to the grid] it gets very complicated and difficult. If we want a low-carbon society, we need to make it much easier. The detail of why it’s so difficult, the market is very unfriendly for small producers, such as individual householders, and our political system is not giving much encouragement to individuals and businesses to do their bit.

Nothing illustrated this more than last week: the government has repeatedly promised smart metres that show what you are using for free. It’s been shown that if householders know which appliances use what energy, they’ll bring the bills down through switching appliances off.

But the government did a u-turn on basis that some technology might come out in the next few years that might be better. Not a tactic, you’ll note, we apply to healthcare or the classroom. But because this might have cost the utilities a bit of money, nothing happened. Political system has some way to go. But there is an opportunity to contribute to the decentralised energy money. Integrate efficiency and renewables with locally generated energy.

Gary Freedman, Ecotricity
Ecotricity is an energy supplier and generator that’s had a green energy tariff, since 1995. They supply clean energy, homes and businesses.

Most important area to talk about re: climate change is energy generation - single biggest emitter. People assume it’s cars or planes, but aviation is only 5% of what we emit. The largest is energy, and so the most important and urgent area to do something about.

When you think about cars, and people talk about battery cars - but how does that battery get charged up? Need more renewables. Two things to do - use less and change the way we generate energy.

Five key areas available:

1. Sun (solar photovoltaics and heating)
This means for homes, photovoltaics that generate electricity and solar hot water. PV is still pretty expensive and quite a long-term pay back, but prices are coming down quite dramatically. Solar hot water is quite economic payback in carbon debt terms and economically. But there’s also solar tower power, which is in the deserts of California and Spain, they get thousands of reflective mirrors which reflects the sun onto a water tank which heats up and boils, which drives an generator. Don’t require any cells, it’s all just mirrors.

2. Hydro (water)
People assume we should do more projects with hydro, but we don’t have any more large areas we can adopt this tech for in the UK. There are a number of smaller projects. It’s reliable, but difficult.

Wave - prototype but a lot of potential for the UK. Lots of wave energy we potentially have, but there are tough marine conditions.

Tidal - talk of barraging the Severn Estuary, could create 10% of UK’s energy, but environmental detriments are significant. So have environmentalists battling with each other, as there are negative impacts to wildlife.

3. Biomass
Means ‘burning stuff’. To make it work you need a source of stuff to burn, and if you’re in London we’re not really surrounded by suitable materials, so a bit limited, but in some ares of the UK and in the north of England and Scotland, it could become more and more relevant and realistic.

4. Ground source heat.
Mentioned Scandinavia, just by drilling a few feet you get to a very stable heat. done very efficiently in Sweden, not really done here in new dwellings. Some people are fighting the building industry about this because if we think about this as buildings are designed it’s more efficient, but can’t really retrofit.

5. Wind power
Very important to distinguish between large-scale wind - the big wind farms - and the small scale turbines that sit on your roof. Large-scale is proven, economic, very efficient, and the only large scale renewable tech that’s truly economic right now.

A few myths about wind:
- do wind turbines kill birds? Only if you put them in migratory paths, and that’s not allowed in the UK. Consult with English Nature, etc. and have no bird deaths in UK now
- noise - is actually very quite now
- intermittency - can have 20% of UK power from intermittent sources, and currently only 3%
- they are efficient
- TV reception - people think that it’s affected but it’s not.
- Carbon debt - people assume that because there’s concrete and metal that it’s not worth it environmentally. But carbon debt repaid in 3 - 6 months and will live for 30 years and at the end of that all that metal can be recycled.

What can businesses do? If a business wants to have renewable energy on their site but doesn’t know where to go, Ecotricity does all the up-front money, installs and maintains, and the company gets the electricity direct.

Ford - London’s first wind park, 2 in Dagenham. Were told that you can’t put wind turbines in a city, and so successful are putting a third up. These 2 turbines provide all electricity for the Dagenham plant.

M4, there’s a very visible turbine at the Prudential, near Reading.

What can individuals do? Probably more difficult, there’s no doubt that energy efficiency is important: using less power, smart meters, showing how much energy you’re using. But starting with something like solar hot-water is a good thing.

Stuart Mockford, CLG Planning Portal
Everything you’ve seen her so far needs planning permission. Planning Portal has something like 150 pages of information on it.

Before you do anything, you need to check what planning permissions etc. you need.

Three areas on the site: public, planing professionals, government users. In public area, is a section on greener homes. Then shows you information on where you can find information for what you need to do to submit a planning application.

One of the areas is micro-generation, i.e. home energy generation. Solar, thermal, small wind turbines, heat pumps, hydro. Site also includes case studies, about what people have experienced when putting these technologies in place. Lots of documents and info you can download.

Interactive House area which give information on what planning applications you need for each type of tech. Solar panels, for example, may not need planning permission but it does vary depending on type of panels and whether your house is listed, etc.

There’s also information on other measures you can take such as loft insulation, including insulation grants.

Site goes into quite a lot of details about what can be done, who’s done it before, and what planning people are likely to say. Good place to go before you spend any money, to make sure you don’t waste any.

Questions
Max: Doug, EfficienCity is an ideal scenario, lots of things that need to be done. Anything you’d prioritise?

Douglas: In some cases, CHP can actually be cheaper than conventional power generation, but it’s risky because there’s an up-front payment, but once it’s up and running it’s cheaper. In Southampton, for example, the central shopping centre is run on decentralised power and their bills are 10% cheaper. But current market models are unfriendly and expensive to set up. So first priority would be that for an urban centre. Under right framework it could be cheaper and easier still.

Max: Any uptake from the government.
Douglas: The government has recognised that local energy is good for the whole system. Even just electricity, on average we waste about 8% of our electricity in the wires connecting power stations to homes. In peak time, it’s about 20%. We have a lot of kit around Britain waiting to support peak power draw, and it’s not used the rest of the time. If energy is local, and don’t have to meet peak load on a national scale, because it’s all done locally, there are enormous savings. We’ve modelled that, by decentralising, we can lower carbon emissions, cheaper, and more secure because we save on fuel. This can save the country money, but from the point of the person putting this in, we don’t see that saving.

Max: Nuclear?
Douglas: We’re very antinuclear.

Gary: We’re with Greenpeace. A fraction of the money they are proposing to put into a nuclear power plant, we could easily put that into renewables and the output would overtake the amount we get from nuclear.

Max: Why don’t they get it?
Gary: The nuclear lobby is very powerful. Government said that they want renewables, but they planners don’t allow it, so the government can say they tried it and it didn’t work.

Max: Attitude of planners?
Stuart: Planners more interested in reducing power usage, also in favour of local generation, but there’s no silver bullet. One augments the other. Help people reduce use and save money, e.g. by providing grants for insulation. And also by reducing spinning reserve, where generators are just spinning, waiting for this demand to come. A of of kit just waiting to meet this demand, and trying to spread that demand and load that we want to think about. If you’re generating some electricity yourself, you’re demand on this spinning load is less, because you need less. So saving power, cutting emissions, and saving money.

Max: Wind turbines, beauty or eyesore?
Gary: We’re beyond that argument because wind is proven, the environmental and economic benefits are proven. Something like 70% of people in most surveys are in favour, the nimby attitude is overdone, we get a lot of positive reaction. Surveys after wind turbines installed increases to 90% in favour. It’s more perception of change. I don’t like look of pylons, but we accept them as something we must have.

Max: What sort of costs are we talking about in terms of implementing renewables, such as solar panels, or wind turbines or ground source?
Gary: Solar hot water is a couple of grand, solar PV, lots more expensive, for a 1kw system, which will produce 1/3 or 1/4 of your needs, costs £10,000, and can get 50% grants.

Max: How do you get grants?
Energy Savings Trust, through the government.

Douglas: In Germany it’s much cheaper, they have much more positive policy framework which is driving costs down.

Max: Wind turbines on a large scale are effective. What about smaller ones? Are they effective?
Stuart: If you have a wind turbine on it’s own, the payback time from savings can take a long time on its won. Some people talk about 18 months - 2 years. Carbon footprint of manufacture also important. But if you tie it in with solar hot water or PV solar, then those combined can provide significant savings.

Douglas: Were considering wind turbines, but need an assessment of wind resources. some urban locations really aren’t suitable. Some are, will get reasonable generation, but make sure you know what you’re dealing with in your place.

Stuart: Yes, on Bodmin Moor, you might get a payback in 6 months, but in Middlesex might be two years.

Max: Microgeneration within the home, you’re producing electricity and power of your own, and you can sell it back to the grid.
Gary: Yes, there are two things you can get - one is the price for the energy, also price for a Renewable Obligation Certificate, so for 1000 kw hrs, you get about £40. Energy costs are increasing so payback is improving. Energy’s gone up about 30% in the last year, so becoming more economic.

Questions from floor.
Q: How much difference would the feed-in tariff system make?
Gary: David Cameron thinks it will, we think it’s a bit late. The ROC system works well for developers, but it’s the planning system that’s difficult. Has been very successful in Germany. Large scale, don’t need it, let’s focus on planing; for micro-renewables, people need help, it’s unaffordable, and don’t see why it’s so hard to get the grant, and it costs us more than in Germany.

Max: Is rather embarrassing that our government is not offering enough incentive. In France, renewables are tax free.

Q: Went to Sweden and was fascinated to see they had 3 wind turbines in each village. Everyone was supportive of those three turbines here, wish we could introduce that in this country. Where do you get a comparison between cost/energy provided by various items that are available, e.g. PV vs. solar panels, wind etc.
Douglas: One place to go would be the Micropower Council, whether they do that in a convenient form, not sure but most likely to know. Or Renewable Energy Association, but are really an industry association for medium scale producers.

Max: Or Renewable Energy Centre. Centre for Alternative Technologies, or Energy Savings Trust. But every manufacturer for wind has a power curve and would take that with a pinch of salt, because it doesn’t include turbulence, wind sheer, etc.. With solar, have to think about maintenance, cleaning, whether your roof faces the right direction. Individual circumstances will affect how well your house does.

Stuart: Huge number of factors that affect efficiency, but taking all of that into account, should be able to publish information on which is the best for different envinronments, but that’s very subjective. It needs an independent party with means of measuring, someone like Which? or equivalent of that.

Max: The Swedish have always embraced these things, it’s a cultural thing. In the UK we have a strange attitude to change, we think the government’s not doing enough but when change does happen, lots of people grumble. Needs a change in mindset, and we should lobby government like crazy. We’ve got a new Mayor of London, who doesn’t have the best rack record regarding carbon and the environment, so let’s give him a kick up the backside!