Energy efficient housing, art in wild spaces and rights for rivers

Plus a look at one council's stance on the use of the pesticide glyphosate

Apr 22, 2025

Good morning! I’m Sarah Hartley and this is The Northern Eco weekly update. As you’ve received this newsletter then either you subscribed, or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter, then you can click on this handy little button below.

While there’s much talk about housing development in the media these days, the general tone tends to be complaints - controversial location, uninspiring style, lack of amenity etc. All justifiable topics for debate to be sure, but in today’s newsletter we take a different tack by looking at a city’s move for super energy efficient housing. Also today we’ve news on:

Artist in residence appointed at the Wildlife Trust
Ground nest fest 2025
The latest from our In the Weeds campaign on North Yorkshire Council

“We have a real commitment to affordability for our residents”

How would you like to live with low, or even no, energy bills? That was the promise when we brought our house a few years ago because of its construction to what’s known as Passivhaus standard.

Did the marketing promise work out for our house? Well I’ve opened up our accounts below so you can see for your yourselves! But the reason for mentioning this is the discovery that the city of York is investing in homes built to this standard across all of its development on council land.

I had a chat with councillor Jenny Kent about the move and the reasons behind it. First why was the Passivhaus standard chosen?

“Because that's the standard we think housing should be. We can't keep building houses which is going to need retrofitting. It needs to be future proof now for every reason for resource, reasons for emissions, reasons for comfort, reasons for the, you know, quality of life for the tenants and the owners.”

Passivhaus standards started in Germany in 1990 and there are now an estimated over 40,000 across Europe. The standard is an international energy performance criteria for buildings, aiming to significantly reduce heating and cooling energy needs while maximising comfort and indoor air quality. They are achieved through a combination of highly insulated building envelopes, airtight construction, and efficient ventilation with heat recovery.

Currently there are three sites across York city being built to this standard:

Duncombe Square – 34 Passivhaus homes, 60% will be an affordable mix of shared ownership and Council rent. First residents expected to move in early summer 2025
Burnholme Green - 78 Passivhaus homes, 60% will be an affordable mix of shared ownership and Council rent. First residents expected to move in autumn 2025
Ordnance Lane – 90 Passivhaus homes plus 11 apartments within the retained ‘Married Quarters’ building retrofit to a high standard, 101 homes in total - 100% affordable mix of shared ownership and Council rent. The tender is currently out to appoint a Principal Contractor for the build phase. Start on site expected in 2025 and build programme is approximately 2-years.

Councillor Kent says the housing move is part of the council’s commitment to be net zero by 2030 and was also a way of addressing specific issues for younger people living in such a honey-pot area.

“York is not alone, but is stark in its affordability crisis, in that rents and house prices are something like 10 times more than the average income. And so for young people it's getting increasingly hard to stay in York and we're really keen to address that.
“Low energy bills means affordability. You can keep warm, the mechanical air ventilation systems that are being put in are fantastic in terms of not only recovering 90% of the outgoing heat to reuse, but it's this really high quality filtration system, which means no mold, no condensation. It's better for people with allergies or health problems, particularly lung problems, and all these are things that we really want to address. We want to address disparity in health outcomes across the city.”

And the new developments have more to them than simply the construction elements as they will also take on board community aspects.

“They're all designed with community in mind” said councillor Kent, “to encourage neighbourly interaction and support.”

“That means there’s private outdoor space for everybody, but also a lot of communal space such as communal growing beds and car free ginnels.

“And there are as many trees as houses. So the accent is on the indoor and outdoor experience.”

We look forward to hearing more when the first residents move in and will update you on progress. What do you think of the moves? Does your local council have anything similar? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

In the weeds

🌿 Following last week’s launch of our long term campaign to stop the pesticide glyphosate being routinely sprayed in public areas, I’m taking a look at how the decisions are being made - starting with my local council, North Yorkshire. You can read that here.

The three most clicked links from the previous newsletter:

Identifying the most suitable low-carbon heating technology for neighbourhoods in Great Britain

National trees outside woodland map

Swinton Estate creates first habitat bank

In other news

Ground Nest Fest 2025 – Celebrating ground nesting birds

Sarah Hartley

Apr 16

Ground Nest Fest 2025 – Celebrating ground nesting birds

Although a common sight in the Yorkshire landscape, several ground nesting species such as the lapwing, and particularly the curlew, face an uncertain future as their numbers are in steep decline.

Read full story

💦 Rivers are increasingly being given legal rights with a district council in England passing a motion to grant its local river the rights to flow freely, to be free from pollution and to enjoy its native biodiversity. Oluwabusayo Wuraola has more at The Conversation.

⛏️ A Parish council has voted unanimously to oppose Europa Oil & Gas’ application to drill for gas near Scarborough writes Anttoni James Numminen, local democracy reporter.

⚡️ Campaigners say their community is “sleepwalking into a nightmare” due to green energy schemes planned for the countryside surrounding their North Yorkshire homes, writes Joe Willis. NIMBYS standing in the way of infrastructure or fair criticism? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Northern Eco