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Insulating houses and offices (windows, roofs, walls).

Imposing more stringent insulation and energy requirements on new builds.

The UK housing stock is very badly insulated.

Yes, insulate as well. But a person living in a single glazed warehouse conversion with no insulation but next to a tube stop and a food shop will use quite a bit less energy overall than a person who lives in a passive house but has to drive 10miles to work. Restoring walkable town centres and discouraging car use in towns and cities that worked fine before cars would save more energy and would be quicker and less disruptive than trying to insulate every old victorian house. Insulating old houses is technically hard to do right and different houses need different solutions. If it’s done badly it will cause health problems from black mould and structural problems from condensation causing timber joists and rafters to rot where they pass through the insulation into the masonry walls.

Sure I agree liveable city neighbourhoods are also a good goal, one the UK gets right a lot of the time (certainly more so than the US for example).

Re bad insulation, don’t do that then, a gov scheme with regulated contractors could ensure that but it is much better to use less energy heating old leaky homes.

PS Insulating 19C housing can be done well, here is a good example: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/heritage-counts/2019...

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