Plea to build heat-resistant homes

Experts are calling on the government to update its upcoming Future Homes Standard to include provisions for overheating homes after a study by the Resolution Foundation found that a fifth of homes in England overheat in current summer temperatures.

Small flats, small homes and those that are overcrowded are all at risk of getting too hot, as are those in cities that suffer from an urban heat island effect. A third of homes have attributes that put them at high risk of overheating in the future.

“The way we are building new housing is not adequate to the climate change we are already seeing, never mind the even hotter weather that’s coming,” said Simon McWhirter, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council.

Zachary Leather, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “With the sweltering temperatures parts of the UK have seen recently set to become more common, we face a greater risk of overheating at home. But this risk is not spread equally – lower-income families, social renters, those with children and ethnic-minority households are more likely to live in homes at risk of overheating.”

The thinktank used data from a government study that placed sensors in people’s homes to determine which type were most at risk of overheating. The figures were then combined with the latest data on who lives in these homes to identify those at the highest risk of overheating as the UK’s temperature rises.