Currys, the high-street electrical retailer, has announced it will sell solar panels to the public, and ACCA is calling for further tax breaks to make this energy-efficient - but expensive - way of generating power more affordable and more accessible for homeowners.

The proposed introduction of a planning gain supplement (PGS) will do little to boost the UK’s housing supply, and may in fact raise housing costs, says ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) in response to the Government’s consultation on PGS. In March 2004’s Barker Review into Housing Supply, PGS was recommended as a means of tackling the problem, saying that “Government should use tax measures to extract some of the windfall gain that comes to landowners from the sale of their land for residential development.”