Industry slams Part L2

Part L2 software is a "poisoned chalice", which the industry will not fund, according to the construction products sector.
Construction Products Assoc-iation industry affairs director John Tebbit said government sloth in producing a tool for conservation of fuel and power in non-domestic buildings could leave firms without the means to build.
Part L2 will require firms to calculate whether buildings comply with regulations on energy efficiency and meet targets on carbon dioxide emissions. Tebbit said the government needs the tool to be ready before the regulation's introduction in January 2006. "We've got to get it nailed down by June 2005 - the document then has a six-month run-in." He added that the industry would need the tool finished by March 2005 to allow it sufficient time to iron out any bugs.
In a meeting earlier this month, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) asked the industry to part-fund the development of the tool. An ODPM spokeswoman said: "It is our firm intention to have a calculator engine with universal interface available next spring."
Officials considered it a "good meeting", despite reaching no decision on funding.
However, the construction products industry dismissed an ODPM proposal that it part-pays for the software, which Tebbit estimates will amount to a six-figure sum.
"If it wanted the industry to pay, it should have asked us in January 2003, but even then we would have said 'no'.
"If it handed the responsibility for it over, I'm sure we could have come up with something, but now it's so much of a poisoned chalice I'm not sure anyone would take it because of the timescale."
Tebbit suggested the ODPM could get its money back by charging designers to use the system.
He said the association's main concern with developing the tool is finding a straightforward way for designers to present data. He said the Building Research Establishment is the only organisation developing an interface suitable to the job.