The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S3M-5351, in the name of Linda Fabiani, on South Lanarkshire College unveils the Aurora house: a first in Scotland. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the official opening by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth of Scotland’s first affordable, low-energy, low-carbon house at South Lanarkshire College in East Kilbride; notes that the Aurora house has an A-rated energy certificate, a heat recovery system, thermal energy pumps and the capacity to create more electricity than it uses; congratulates South Lanarkshire College, the Scottish construction company, Dawn Homes, and the other project partners for conceiving and building the Aurora; notes that the house will be used as a training facility for students and apprentices aiming to work in the construction industry, and believes that this flagship project gives Scotland the potential to become a world-leader in building a new generation of affordable low-carbon homes, helping to both combat climate change and address fuel poverty.
17:07
I am delighted to open this debate, especially after the heated debate on education and skills that we have just had, because this debate will be consensual. The opening of the Aurora house will be welcomed by members of all parties.
Just before the Copenhagen conference on climate change, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth came to South Lanarkshire College in East Kilbride for the second time—he had been there to cut the first turf for the great initiative that I am talking about. On that day, Mr Swinney officially opened Scotland’s first affordable low-energy, low-carbon house. The Aurora house has an A-rated energy certificate, a heat recovery system, thermal energy pumps and the capacity to create more electricity than it uses. Great congratulations are due to the college and all the partners who have been involved in the fantastic initiative.
The Aurora house was a great conception, in particular when we consider that it will be used as a training facility for students and apprentices who aim to work in the construction industry. South Lanarkshire College has a good record in everything that it teaches and is involved in, particularly construction. Not long ago the college successfully hosted the skillbuild 2009 competition, in which two of its students, Douglas Robertson and Stephen Butler, won medals for carpentry and roof slating and tiling respectively.
The college deserves much praise for its achievements, particularly since it moved into its new campus in the centre of East Kilbride. I praise in particular Ian Macpherson, the chairman, who oversaw the project; Stewart McKillop, the principal; Angus Allan, the depute principal; and their team of staff. Special commendation goes to the construction skills team at the college.
I will get back to the Aurora house. It is a flagship project that gives Scotland the potential to become a world leader in building a new generation of affordable low-carbon homes, thereby helping to combat climate change and addressing fuel poverty, which is hugely important in this day and age. Scotland is leading the way not only in climate change legislation, but in methods of delivering what is in that legislation.
The Aurora house is the result of a successful and unique partnership between South Lanarkshire College, Dawn Homes—part of the Dawn Group, which is made up of Dawn Construction, Dawn Homes and Dawn Development—and more than 50 private sector partners. The design of the house is also very important because that design has not been compromised by the building’s functionality, so I will mention the architects: Jewitt Arschavir and Wilkie Architects.
The house showcases low-energy technologies and high insulation levels, is capable of reducing energy use and energy bills to zero, while contributing to the challenging Government targets to reduce greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. The house exceeds the building standards requirements that it is recommended should come into force in 2013 and then in 2016-17, so it is a blueprint for eco-friendly house construction, with the added bonus of being a training facility, that is unique in the United Kingdom, for teaching students the principles behind low-energy buildings.
It is one of the few houses to be built that easily achieves an A rating, which is the highest possible energy performance rating. When we consider that most older housing achieves only a D rating, and that most new build housing achieves only a C rating, we can see that the house is very special and something to which others can aspire.
It is a great initiative. A sensible design approach was adopted in the design of the timber frame, the placement of the windows and the inclusion of the heat recovery units and rainwater harvesting system. The house has photovoltaic panels, solar hot-water panels, an air-heat recovery system, ground-source heat exchanger, and one third of the air leakage of a typical new house. There are energy-saving light tunnels on the upper floor and water-saving sinks and baths.
When it is operational, the house will be net zero carbon.
We are talking about a four-bedroom detached house, but it is fully scalable and will allow smaller and larger properties in semi-detached or terraced styles to be produced as the market demands. I have limited time to speak, but I have many fact sheets with me. It would take a whole afternoon to fully extol the benefits of the project for learning and the economy, so if anyone wants to learn more about it, I have all the information available.
I would like to mention Dawn Construction here—of course, I mean Dawn Homes, but I have always known it as Dawn Construction—which has gained a proud record over many years of housing rehabilitation and now new-build housing. The company looked at and adapted the house because it realised that future discerning home buyers will prefer energy-efficient properties to those that are less energy efficient. The Aurora project has allowed Dawn Homes and its operatives to learn the complexities of what is required in the design of such a house, so that it can make an affordable and replicable product that will exceed Government targets. Dawn Homes has had the learning experience, and its workforce is learning new and different skills, which, through South Lanarkshire College, will allow the workforce of the future to learn new skills. It also means that a company has done some very innovative thinking and has now placed itself in the right place to accelerate out of the current recession and to be successful at the other end of it. That ethos of innovation must be congratulated.
Yesterday afternoon we had a debate about community regeneration; the Aurora house is a great example of that. It involved the college and learning, skills development and employment, along with all the agencies that worked together, including South Lanarkshire Council, which helped with building regulations and so on. It involved good design, but most important for regeneration of the community, it gave pride in achievement. Everyone who was involved in the Aurora house project can be proud of their achievement. I commend them to the Parliament.
17:15
As the local constituency member, I find it a great pleasure to take part in this debate, which I congratulate Linda Fabiani on bringing to the chamber.
The Aurora house sits in a great academic campus, and it is a joy to visit the college and see the great works that are going on. The house contrasts sharply with the old building down in the village of East Kilbride where my wife went for her secondary education some years ago—for the record, it was not that many years ago.
The Aurora house sends a strong message about the culture and values of the leadership at South Lanarkshire Council with regard to innovation in approach and the key skills that they are passing on to our young people in East Kilbride and beyond in South Lanarkshire. The project is a credit to them.
Linda Fabiani has given us all the details about the house. The key point is that we need to do things differently in the future, and the Aurora house offers us a vision of that future—which is not the far-distant future, but the immediate future.
It is great to hear that Dawn Construction—as I, like Linda Fabiani, know the company—is involved in the project, as it has been innovative for many years. The combination of the values and innovation of the academic leadership, the leadership of the team involved and the work of the students and the other partners brings us to a point at which we can showcase a style of house building for the immediate future. The project allows an evidence base to be developed around the fact that we can do things differently and better in the future.
I am much taken by the point that was made by Linda Fabiani and by all those involved that the Aurora house is a fully scalable project—the size of the building can change. That suits everyone with regard to the future of house building here, and it can and will make a considerable difference in the future.
The project is about learning and skills, and the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that have been shown by all those involved are a great credit to the staff, students and partners.
The debate allows us in the Parliament to recognise the contribution that is made by the Aurora house, the college and its partners. The project demonstrates that if we have the vision, we can bring about real change. Linda Fabiani used the word “potential”, and we need to ensure that we turn that potential into reality.
17:17
I congratulate Linda Fabiani on lodging the motion that we are debating this evening.
South Lanarkshire College prides itself on aiming to provide
“real people with real skills for real jobs.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that there is fierce competition for the college’s 5,500 places and for the courses, which combine high-quality teaching with an innovative, forward-looking approach to learning. Better still, that teaching is delivered in an environment that is conducive to learning, in the shape of the college’s spectacular new campus. I had the pleasure of visiting the campus last year, during which I met the principal, Stewart McKillop, and the former chairman of the board of management, Ian Macpherson. I had a tour of the new building and heard at first hand about the ethos of the college and the courses that are on offer.
The Aurora house provides a practical example of that ethos in action. It was born out of a successful partnership between the college and private sector partners, including Dawn Homes and 50 others. Together, they have come up with Scotland’s first affordable low-energy, low-carbon house.
As the motion states, the Aurora house has
“the potential to become a world-leader”,
and it is groundbreaking in terms of the production of eco-friendly, affordable homes for the mass market.
Some of the features have already been mentioned, but they are worth repeating. The Aurora house achieves the highest possible energy performance rating: it has an A rating, in comparison with the D rating that is given to older houses and the C rating that newer homes achieve. Potential savings could be as high as £1,800 per year, which makes the design ideal for the social housing market and helps to address fuel poverty.
Furthermore, as Linda Fabiani said, the fact that the four-bedroom Aurora is scalable means that it can be adapted for smaller and larger properties and for different house styles. That, coupled with its zero carbon status, which puts it far in advance of the 2013 to 2016 target under which all new houses will require to be net zero carbon, makes the Aurora highly marketable.
Students at South Lanarkshire College are being given the opportunity to learn about the innovative techniques and technologies through the medium of a unique training experience, whereby they are able to see the Aurora’s insulation materials and construction approaches, which are made visible through cutaway sections. Students will learn about other Aurora features such as energy-saving light tunnels on the upper floors; triple-glazed windows; airtight construction, which delivers less than a quarter of the air leakage of a typical new house; solar hot water panels; a rain-harvesting system; water-saving sinks and baths—the list goes on.
It is clear that, through the pioneering Aurora programme and the new technology training that it offers to students, South Lanarkshire College is achieving its stated aim of providing
“real people with real skills for real jobs.”
The college and its partners can be justifiably proud of the futuristic, visionary Aurora, which is certainly good news for the college’s students and for East Kilbride, and a credit to Scotland.
17:21
I am sure that Linda Fabiani will forgive me for speaking in the debate despite the fact that I am not a list MSP for her region. However, I am extremely interested in the issue, given my position as convener of the cross-party group on architecture and the built environment.
No building that is being constructed at the moment should be described as affordable unless it is up to the energy-efficiency standards to which the building that we are discussing has been built. A house that is cheap to buy but expensive to heat and light is not affordable. That is the bottom line. I ask the Minister for Housing and Communities to bear that in mind whenever anybody describes an affordable house, housing estate or development to him. The first question has to be whether the property is meets or goes beyond the very highest standards—not just the present standards—of energy efficiency. Houses that are being built now cannot be described as affordable unless they meet the required standards for 2012 to 2015.
I draw the minister’s attention to the fact that very good work is being done not just in Lanarkshire but at Napier University—particularly at the centre for timber engineering—and at Heriot-Watt University. Professor Sandy Halliday at the University of Dundee is also doing work to promote the idea of energy-efficient houses and building.
We should consider what can be achieved, and in that regard I will talk about a school building rather than a house. I have mentioned Acharacle primary school before—I love the very name Acharacle, which is poetic and rolls off the tongue. It was designed with the staff, the children and the local community in mind, and they were involved in the design. All the materials are natural: the untreated timber, the lino, the clay plaster and the vegetable-based paints. The structure of the building is made from Brettstapel, a form of glue-free massive timber construction. Although the timber had to be imported from Austria, every tonne of carbon that was produced in importing that wood was saved, because 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide are saved in the embedded energy in the wood.
Most of the school is made from wood. Its electricity consumption is significantly reduced, through the large triple-glazed windows, optimised daylighting and the use of very energy-efficient appliances. Houses are overloaded at the moment, as too many electrical appliances come with them, and they are not AAA rated.
A landscape workshop was held with all the children so that they could come up with ideas for the design of the different gardens around the school. That is another issue with some of the big estates: we put up houses but do not do much about the surroundings.
All the classrooms have enough daylighting so that lights are generally not needed. Temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and daylighting are monitored and levels are displayed in each classroom. I hope that it is possible regularly to check everywhere in the Aurora house to ensure that the temperature is at the level at which it should be kept.
I love the idea that the Aurora house is associated with South Lanarkshire College and with developing skills. It is important that we develop the skills that we need, but we also need to upskill building control in Scotland so that when new buildings are inspected as they are being built the inspectors know what to look for. I have heard of cases of buildings that have not been up to the standards that have been claimed for them in insulation in particular.
I have gone slightly over time, but I thank Linda Fabiani for bringing the subject to the Parliament for debate. It is a pity that there are not at least 10 more members present and that we do not have seven minutes each.
17:26
I start on a personal note by wishing Ian Macpherson all the best after his recent operation. I look forward to seeing him back to full fitness as soon as possible.
I also congratulate Linda Fabiani on securing the debate and agree with Robin Harper that it is a pity that more members are not present. The Aurora house is not a localised, South Lanarkshire issue; it has much wider implications, not only throughout Scotland, because the project is an exemplar of what can be done throughout Europe.
The low-carbon Scottish buildings of tomorrow must be affordable to construct, buy or rent and comfortably heat and power without forcing householders into fuel poverty. The Aurora house brings all those conditions together into one project. It offers an important insight into what is needed for us as a society to realise a low-carbon future in respect of technical solutions and the construction skills that are needed to support them. Robin Harper’s point about the construction skills that are required for the future is valid.
Scotland has the best energy standards for new buildings in the United Kingdom and will continue to keep the leading edge in that respect. Revised building regulations that are to be introduced in October this year will result in emissions of around 70 per cent less than 1990 levels for new homes. We recognise that higher energy standards will require more skilled people and we know that more trained apprentices will be necessary. Therefore, with cross-party support, we are investing £16 million to support an additional 7,800 new apprenticeships this year. Construction Skills, the sector skills council for construction, is also reviewing future training needs against the sector’s shift to low-carbon requirements.
Skills are also one of the many areas that will be addressed in our energy efficiency action plan, which we will publish in late spring. That plan will set out a range of policies and programmes to reduce energy consumption across all sectors. We recognise that the energy efficiency of existing homes, as well as new build, must be improved significantly and a lot of work is under way on that. Indeed, the energy efficiency action plan consultation document that we published late last year estimated that, for the housing sector to achieve its share of the 42 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, we need to invest £16 billion in our housing stock throughout Scotland.
The action plan will also include Scotland-wide advice for householders. We have made a modest start with our £2 million interest-free loans for a range of measures and the energy efficiency design awards, which reward innovative approaches to saving energy, particularly in hard-to-treat housing.
As has been mentioned, these initiatives are important in tackling fuel poverty.
One of my first visits as Minister for Housing and Communities was to the Lochside estate in Dumfries. The first lady tenant whom I met there had just moved from a two-bedroom flat to a four-bedroom, upstairs-downstairs house and, because of the new insulation technology that Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership had applied, her gas bill had gone down from £40 a week for a two-bedroom flat to £36 a month for a four-bedroom house. That shows a coming together in achieving fuel poverty objectives and carbon emission reduction objectives. One of the Aurora house’s great strengths is, of course, its low energy requirement, which mitigates the effect of rising energy prices and the risk of fuel poverty. We must also recognise the importance of microgeneration in meeting future challenges, as well as the importance of new technologies, the feed-in tariff for electricity and the renewable heat incentive, which helps to encourage and facilitate the new technologies that are required.
I welcome the debate—it is a pity that it is not better attended—and the contribution of the Aurora project. I have not yet had the opportunity to visit the project, but I would welcome an invitation to do so. As the minister responsible for housing and fuel poverty, I want to see this kind of technology at first hand. However, Mr Swinney assures me that the Aurora project makes an exciting contribution to addressing the challenges of climate change, energy efficiency, the promotion of new skills for the new economy and the reduction of fuel poverty.
On a new note, Aurora is the Latin word for dawn. I commend all those involved in the ambitious project and I hope that the Aurora house signals not just a new dawn for Dawn Construction Ltd, but the dawn of a generation of affordable low-carbon and low-energy housing for Scotland. Where better to start than in Lanarkshire?
Meeting closed at 17:32.Previous
Decision Time