Hurrah for Miliband! All new homes to have solar panels

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who gets more than his fair share of stick for his long-standing adherence to “net zero” goals, said yesterday that house-builders are to be forced to install solar panels and heat pumps in the “vast majority” of new homes.

He said it is “just common sense”, and he is right, particularly concerning solar panels.

It is madness, as this column has long argued, that it has taken so long for this to become government policy – especially as all the while we are covering productive farmland in vast solar farms beneath which even weeds struggle to grow.

In fact, it seems the industry is ahead of Mr Miliband, as increasing numbers of new builds are now coming with solar panels as standard – developments in the Cockerton area of Darlington, for instance, appear to be well roofed with them.

Indeed, Mr Miliband is not going far enough: it is extraordinary that the vast warehouses that have sprung up on green peripheral fields around practically all of our towns in recent years are not also obliged to have their massive acreage of roofs covered with panels.

Next, we hope to see all new-builds come electric car ready and for the estates to have genuine walking and cycling strategies connecting them to town and country.

This isn’t really anything to do with net zero. It is about harvesting the energy the sun kindly gives us for free, and it is about future-proofing the new homes that people are being asked to fork out a fortune for.