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Product category: Roofing
News Release from: Hambleside Danelaw | Subject: Tax incentives for energy efficient buildings
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial Team on 06 March 2006

Tax incentives for energy efficient
buildings?

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'Tax incentives needed in the Budget to encourage construction of energy efficient buildings', says environmental award-winning building materials manufacturer Hambleside Danelaw

'Tax incentives needed in the Budget to encourage construction of energy efficient buildings', says environmental award-winning building materials manufacturer Hambleside Danelaw , a UK manufacturer of energy efficient rooflights and other building materials, has made a pre-Budget call for the Chancellor to introduce new tax incentives to encourage the construction of energy-efficient buildings The call comes when nearly half of Britain's carbon output is being emitted as heat loss from buildings and there is a widespread lack of compliance with building regulations designed to tackle this significant factor affecting climate change

Hambleside Danelaw has been lobbying ministers and MPs since the Government began a review of the current regulations' effectiveness in encouraging energy efficiency.

It has described last September's review outcome and the proposed amendments to the regulations as 'a recipe for confusion', which will do little to improve the level of compliance.

The manufacturer, with a plant in Daventry and an environmental award-winning factory in Inverness, has pointed out that local authorities have limited resources to check that new commercial and industrial buildings are in accordance with regulations and that therefore tax incentives offer a better chance of encouraging compliance.

The company wants Gordon Brown to consider introducing one of three options:.

* reductions in business rates (the Government is reportedly considering reduced council tax payments for residents of energy efficient homes).

* extension of the Enhanced Capital Allowances scheme for energy-saving plant and machinery to cover energy efficient buildings.

* increasing the annual rate of Writing Down Allowances in the Industrial Building Allowance scheme for persons who have constructed an energy efficient industrial building or bought it unused.

Halldor Thorgeirsson, a senior official from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told a Hambleside director during an online debate last month that 'regulation and financial incentives are both important tools to promote energy efficiency improvements in the building sector'.

Commenting on the Government's keenness to take a lead in global initiatives to tackle climate change and its instigation of several domestic reviews to look at the problem, Paul Wilkinson, Hambleside Danelaw's group marketing director, said: "After a lot of debate, the Chancellor's Budget is an opportunity to demonstrate that the Government is really serious about reducing Britain's carbon emissions".

"We hope that he does more than just tinker at the edges; otherwise heat loss from buildings will continue to be a major factor in damaging our environment.".

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