Why Fairbourne Is the Most Important Town You’ve Never Heard Of
… and ‘Stranded Assets’ are a lot closer than you realise.
If you live in the UK, the prospect of Climate Change may feel very far away — far off in the future or happening in lands thousands of miles away.
With our brick houses and steel buildings, we are safe on our tiny little island; safe from the worst effects of the Climate Crisis and far removed from the majority of ‘natural’ disasters.
Wrong.
Fairbourne and ‘Stranded Assets’.
Let’s start with Fairbourne.
Located on the coast of Barmouth Bay, to the south of the estuary of the River Mawddach, sits Fairbourne, surrounded by Snowdonia National Park.
The tiny village is facing an existential crisis.
It has been identified as being at high risk of future flooding because of climate change, with residents told it is beyond saving.
In 2014, Gywnedd Council, which has oversight of Fairbourne, said it would not maintain flood defences indefinitely and that from 2054 the village will no longer be inhabitable.
The council plans to “decommission” the entire village.
Dismantling all homes, roads, shops and infrastructure, and turn it back into marshland.
The residents of Fairbourne are set to become the first official UK ‘climate refugees’.
Lets circle back to that little bit.
Beyond Saving.
As house prices all across the country continue to rise at eye-watering rates (far outstretching the amount I spend on avocado on toast) — house prices in Fairbourne are sinking.
Understandably, so many residents don’t want to up and leave. They want the council to continue to invest in sea defenses and building resilience for their homes.
But for those who are willing to leave, it’s increasingly becoming unaffordable.
And that’s where Stranded Assets come in.
The multinational, multidisciplinary consultancy Arup, produced this excellent report on Net Zero Carbon Buildings.
The scale of the net zero carbon property challenge is starting to be understood. Commitments to decarbonise are coming thick and fast.
Huge efforts are needed to rapidly decarbonise our buildings and energy sector.
As we see a greater emphasis on measuring the carbon of our buildings (throughout the whole life cycle), it seems likely that this will encourage the market to make a connection between carbon performance and asset value.
In the UK we have seen an increasing uptake of NABERs accredited buildings — which measures the post-occupancy, in-use performance as opposed to just the designed performance (and has been a huge success in Australia where it originated) as well as the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) making it unlawful to let properties with low EPC ratings.
Properties that are built to perform efficiently, low energy and low carbon, are of higher market value.
The illustration below highlights that properties that are not sufficiently upgraded/ retrofitted will be at risk of becoming ‘stranded’.
In other words, if your property is not efficient (low energy, low carbon) then you will not be able to sell or let it (either at all, or at least not at the value you would like for it).
The Link
In many instances, the cost of upgrading buildings (domestic or non-domestic) may be too high. Unfortunately, as appears to be the case with Fairbourne, the whole town has become a stranded asset, not just an individual building.
It’s hard to comprehend the far-reaching effects this is going to have on the lives of all those who currently live in the town of Fairbourne.
We must do what we can to mitigate further increases in carbon emissions and rising temperatures — but we must also prepare and build resiliance in our communities.
A big part of mitigation AND resilience, is our buildings.
Our buildings are responsible for about 40% of our UK carbon emissions.
We should stop using gas in our buildings now. Not tomorrow.
Let’s support a just transition to renewables as quickly as possible.
The data and technology exists today.
Through effective insulation and electrification of our buildings, we can make huge improvements on reducing our carbon emissions.
Fairbourne might become the first UK town to be classified as uninhabitable due to the Climate Crisis — but will it be the last?
