Fiona Harvey

new homes, new housing, build in green areas.

Don't pave over every single surface.

When you pave over surfaces, it creates problems with flooding, with the runoff, but it also creates more heat.

Well, a lot of them were built a long time ago.

We had a different climate then.

So a lot of our housing stock is just not built for this.

But you can adapt it.

But it's not just those older houses.

A lot of the modern houses we've built have not been built very well.

A lot of the flats that we allow builders to build are tiny.

If you're in a very small flat, it can feel like a rabbit hutch.

We have this new future home standard which is coming in.

A lot of that has focused on insulation for keeping homes warm so that you use less energy to heat homes.

But you've got to provide means of cooling homes as well.

And actually, that has been a bit of a blind spot in those regulations.

And

There's one solution which is probably going to become more popular is heat pumps.

Now, we're used to thinking of them as a replacement for gas boilers, but they can also be used the opposite way round.

They can be used to cool rooms during hot weather.

Insulating houses as well can help to keep heat out, but people have got to use it right.