Today, the Healthy Homes and Buildings APPG, together with the BRE, has launched the Healthy Homes Healthy Britain campaign and Healthy Homes Manifesto. The cross-party campaign aims to embed health and well-being principles in future policy for future generations and call for positive change.
BRE has also launched its final report, The Cost of Poor Housing, which provides further evidence of the urgent need to tackle the plethora of health and well-being problems caused and exacerbated by poor quality, damp, noisy, poorly ventilated, light deficient and energy inefficient homes and buildings which need to be addressed by any future Government. The BRE’s latest report states:
- £9billion to improve 2.4million poor homes in England would pay for itself within 9 years based only on NHS savings
- Wider social payback of £135.5billion over the next 30 years. This includes £13billion of savings to the NHS.
- Improving the 65,000 homes with a Category 1 damp and mould hazard would only cost £250million, unlocking £4.8billion in societal benefit over the next 30 years if this work was to be undertaken immediately.
Gillian Charlesworth, CEO of BRE, said: “Our analysis sends a clear signal to policymakers that investing in the health and safety of England’s poor housing will deliver significant, long-term economic and societal benefits. Up until now, no serious attempt has been made to examine and quantify the longer-term costs and benefits if the worst health and safety hazards were removed from England’s substandard housing.”
The Healthy Homes Healthy Britain Manifesto calls on all parties, future legislators and policymakers to recognise that serious, and sometimes, fatal health problems are being generated by the UK’s unhealthy homes and buildings.
Speaking at the Healthy Homes Healthy Britain launch in Parliament, chair of the Healthy Homes and Buildings APPG, Jim Shannon MP, said: “The status quo is simply not sustainable. We need to act now to increase the standard, quality, energy efficiency and health and well-being benefits in new and existing homes across the UK.”
“The HHHB campaign is about making sure everyone has the right to live in a healthy home. All legislators and policymakers need to put health and well-being principles first for future generations. It is no longer acceptable to ignore the inextricable link between health and housing. We must ensure that our homes no longer cause or exacerbate poor health and well-being. We are confident that this is a campaign which will raise awareness and win support from all parties – and most of all realise positive change.”
