ABSTRACT
Introduction Housing has many environmental consequences: house building consumes raw materials and energy and the resulting development affects the wider environment. During the lifetime of a house a considerable amount of energy will be used in heating, lighting and all the everyday activities of life which require electricity. The location of households has implications for roads, schools, shops and other facilities. The decisions that government and local authorities make about the location of housing affect not only the lives of millions of people but also the landscape and the natural habitat. The present government policy is that 60 per cent of the housing required to accommodate the estimated 4.4 million extra households expected by 2016 should go on land previously used for another purpose and that is now vacant. These ‘brownfield’ sites are usually to be found in urban areas. Many people fear that unless this is done then a massive building programme on greenfield sites will erode the countryside significantly. The demand for more housing is a major national policy decision with nationwide
implications in many areas where there is increasing conflict over the siting of developments. This chapter reviews how the present distribution of housing emerged and the environmental impacts of contemporary housing policy before considering the key elements of a sustainable housing policy.
