New Homes Survey

Sustainable Harwell survey finds that residents and future buyers want new homes to have very high levels of energy efficiency including solar panels.

Many new residential properties are currently being built or are planned to be constructed in the parish and the surrounding area in the coming decades.  For example, 4,400 new homes are planned at Valley Park in Harwell, next to Didcot.

Given this situation we wanted to survey the views of people in the Harwell community as well as those considering purchasing a new property in the area in the future, to understand how energy efficient and environmentally friendly they think these new homes should be.

An anonymous on-line survey was run during the summer of 2020. The survey was advertised widely using email and social media. Nearly 100 people registered their views.

The survey was split into a number of sections to understand the views of those owning older properties, those owning newer properties (10 years old or less) and potential future property owners considering purchasing a brand new property in the area in the next 3 years.

The survey findings outlined in this report will help guide our activities in the future.

Headline Findings

• 96% of the survey respondents said it was either essential (82%) or important (14%) that the new homes being built in the Harwell area should have very-high levels of energy efficiency.
• A large majority of survey respondents (71%) said that solar panels should be installed in the roofs of new properties being built with a further 22% saying it should be offered as an option.
• A substantial majority of prospective purchasers (77%) say they would be prepared to spend extra to make sure their property had very high levels of energy efficiency.   

Find out more

• Fuller analysis of results (PDF)
• Detailed analysis of responses to each question (PDF)
• Link to graphical summary of questions and answers(Google Forms report)
  (If link to Google Forms does not work, view as PDF)