Your article (13 April, page 13) was right to highlight the difficulties posed by local authorities having the autonomy to set their own standards for new homes.

A multiplicity of targets would threaten our ability to achieve the 2016 objective.We do not know how to achieve zero-carbon standards in any kind of meaningful volume. A proliferation of targets will harm our ability to innovate, test, prove and deliver in the numbers we need to. Failure risks harming consumer confidence.

We need local authorities to keep to the code timetable. We share the aims of higher output and high performance standards. We must ensure that in achieving one of these, the other is not undermined.

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman, HBF

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