Weekly Policy Update |
up to Monday 27th October 2025

Launch of the Healthy Homes Standard 

This week, the government published the Healthy Homes Standard (HHS), described as a “new benchmark for designing homes that actively support physical and mental wellbeing” and covering a wide range of health, quality of life and sustainability related requirements for newly built homes.  The standard has been developed by the government agency Homes England. Our understanding is that new housing built under the government’s £39bn, ten-year funding programme to build 300,000 social and affordable homes in England will need to meet the requirements of the standard.

Some notable HHS requirements include all homes meeting Energy Performance Certificate “A”, and to be assessed for whole life carbon.  Other, more directly health related, features of the standard are innovative – for example good practice standards for considering neurodiversity in new home construction. 

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) publishes clean energy jobs plan 

DESNZ has published a clean energy jobs plan promising to recruit 400,000 extra jobs by 2030. Relevant to buildings, this plan covers: heat pumps; heat networks; energy efficiency and retrofit. The plan includes plans to set up five Technical Excellence Colleges (TEC) to train workers with clean energy skills. 

Government publishes review into mainstreaming property flood resilience 

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency have published a new review into flood resilience, calling on all relevant stakeholders to do more to improve resilience.  The review, led by Professor Peter Bonfield, looks at “how the nation can accelerate practical and affordable flood resilience measures for homes, while offering a clear roadmap for boosting resilience and helping people recover faster from floods.” 

Government publishes its post-16 education and skills white paper 

The white paper introduces a new qualification called V-Levels for 16–19 year-olds in England. The V-Levels are designed to replace around 900 existing level 3 BTECs, allowing students to mix and match V-Levels alongside A-Levels. The report also announces that TECs (see skills reforms above) will be expanded to a further four sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, digital and technologies and defence.  

New regional investment drive launched by government and Britain’s biggest pension providers to unlock infrastructure funding

A new regional investment drive – titled Sterling 20 – formally launched in Birmingham at the first regional investment summit on Tuesday, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves in attendance. The summit focused on regional inequalities and invest in areas such as affordable housing and rural broadband, The Times reports. The scheme has been backed by funds and insurance providers including Legal & General, Nest and Aviva among others. It comes as the Government is looking to encourage pension funds to invest more in the UK to help unlock billions of funding for key infrastructure projects. The government stated that £800m of investment for the West Midlands was announced at the summit.

Consultation: Regulation Reform – have your say

The Government is seeking input from businesses to identify regulations that are “outdated, overly burdensome, or hinder growth.” This is part of a drive to cut regulatory costs by 25% while keeping essential protections. 

Reports, commentary and insight 

Delays in the Building Safety Regulator (BSR)  

Delays in signing off plans for new construction of higher-risk residential buildings (such as tower blocks) have been widely reported as a problem for the Building Safety regulator. In an editorial newsletter, Property Week report some progress in unblocking the delays saying: “Former fire chiefs Andy Roe as chair and Charlie Pugsley as chief executive, parachuted in over the summer, have evidently brought both an improved sense of direction and a new sense of urgency.” Separately, the Yimby Initiative, an organisation that advocates for reforms to accelerate development has criticised the BSR as “one of the biggest blockages to getting Britain building.” It sets out a reform agenda thar rewards excellence through digitising submissions, using AI to triage cases and fast-tracking compliant developers.  

National Retrofit Hub publishes a report on improving health and housing outcomes in the private rental sector (PRS)

 The report explores how the updated Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) can be an opportunity to deliver a healthy, robust, stable, and affordable PRS. It considers 5 key themes:  rental affordability and security, better treatment of, and support for, tenants, effective housing standards enforcement and high levels of compliance, high quality work and effective redress routes and stable housing supply, across tenures. 

Which? Publishes insights into homeowners’ uptake and attitudes towards heat pumps, solar panels and energy batteries 

 A new Which? report says that homeowners’ awareness and willingness to consider solar panels, heat pumps and energy batteries has increased significantly, although uptake remains low. The paper recommends that the government tackles concern about the financial cost of heat pumps, provides good quality independent information and advice and introduces mandatory MCS certification of installers.  

Labour MPs push back against social housing quota cuts 

Against a background of political concern and commentary about levels of housebuilding delivery in London, Labour MPs have raised concerns over recently announced plans to cut London’s social housing quotas. Plans would see the minimum social housing requirements for developers brought down from 35% to 20%, according to an internal memo seen by The Guardian. 

West Midlands to spend £75m addressing the construction skills gap – Inside Housing 

Inside Housing reports that Richard Parker, mayor of the West Midlands, has announced £75m of funding aimed at training more than 12,000 new construction workers over the next three years due to an imminent “construction boom”. The region plans to build 12,200 new homes each year and undertake a £160m retrofit scheme to make thousands of homes more energy efficient.  

Government puts firms on notice for £360m Euston masterplan role – Building  

Building reports that the government will launch a preliminary market engagement exercise for a five year £360m design and engineering job for the programme of works at Euston station.  

Building a sustainable future: The importance of decarbonising cement production – Edie 

In this article in Edie, Marian Garfield, Sustainability Director at Heidelberg Materials UK, argues for importance of carbon capture and storage in decarbonising the cement industry. The company is launching evoZero, claimed to be the world’s first net-zero cement, by capturing up to 95% of emissions at its new Padeswood plant.