A ‘COOL Rule’ should be applied when building any new homes, Wellington’s MP Gideon Amos said this week as the area experienced a fifth heatwave of the year.

Mr Amos, who is the Liberal Democrat party spokesperson for housing and communities, wants it made compulsory for properties to be fitted with cooling systems, either air conditioning or reversible heat pumps.

He said: “We have spent generations building homes to keep the cold out, now, we must urgently adapt them to survive the heat.

“UK housing stock was designed for a cold climate problem that no longer matches the risk profile the sector now faces.

“As heatwaves become a recurring feature of the British summer, overheating in homes has moved from a niche design consideration to a live public health and productivity issue, and building regulations have not kept pace.

“The scale of the problem is no longer marginal.

“Recent UK heatwaves have been linked to an estimated 2,700 excess deaths, concentrated among older people and those with existing health problems.

“And UK hotels are even seeing surges in bookings from parents with babies desperate to escape overheated homes.

“The economic impact is similarly significant.

“ITV reported that, in June alone, the UK lost 24 million hours of work to heat, equivalent to roughly three million full working days.

“For a sector already under pressure to demonstrate value for money in housing investment, this is a cost that policy has largely left unpriced.

“For decades, housing standards have rightly focused on thermal retention, insulation, airtightness, and heating efficiency as the primary routes to comfort, health, and lower bills.

“That focus was correct for the risk profile of the 20th century.

“It is no longer sufficient on its own.

“Current building regulations, which restrict mechanical cooling to ‘exceptional circumstances’, were not written with today’s summer temperatures in mind, and arguably now work against occupant safety in a meaningful share of the housing stock.

“Recent studies, including by the University of Manchester, have also now shown that fears mechanical cooling adds unacceptable energy demand and emissions, are not borne by the facts.

“Hot summers are producing excesses of clean electricity in the UK which is going unused.

“In addition, shading provided by simple tree planting delivers 10 times the cooling effect needed to outweigh any heat emitted from the installations involved.

“The time has come to demand a statutory minimum standard, a ‘Cool Rule’, requiring all new homes to be fitted with cooling provision, whether through air conditioning or reversible heat pumps.

“This would make homes capable of maintaining a safe internal temperature of around 20°C during extreme heat events.

“The sector has spent a generation optimising for heat retention.

“The next phase of housing standards needs to treat overheating with the same regulatory seriousness that has historically been applied to underheating.”

Mr Amos said the most practical solution for existing homes would be broadening the Warm Homes Grant into a Better Homes Grant to fund cooling measures alongside insulation and heating upgrades for people least able to adapt their homes.