24 October 2020
It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that development continues apace and the Proposed Government Planning Reform intends to introduce further changes to the current planning system which will significantly reduce the ability of local people to influence planning as decision making becomes more centralised. The Stafford and Stone Green Party has submitted its response to the consultation @communities.com which closed on the 1st Oct after a very short consultation period.
We acknowledge the need to build more housing but not more detached 4-bedroom ones; social housing with affordable rents is urgently needed. Simply deciding on an algorithm to apportion 300,000 homes per year without any evidence being produced to support this target is highly questionable and is skewed towards developers and the land industry.
There is a fundamental failure to place the urgent need for carbon reduction central to these proposals. Alongside the 10% net gain in biodiversity, there should be an equivalent commitment to carbon reduction. Every development should not only be carbon neutral but should be generating more power than it uses. The current proposal to be ‘carbon net zero-ready by 2050’ is simply not ambitious enough.
Remember the government’s ‘Flagship’ scheme, hailed as transformational when it was launched in 2013 to insulate all homes and make them more energy efficient? In 2015 the government axed it because, according to Amber Rudd, ‘We are on the side of hard working families and businesses which is why we can’t continue to fund the green deal’.
Now, almost a decade later, Lord Deben emphasises the point that because developers have been allowed to operate in a low regulatory culture, maximize profits over energy efficient standards and quality construction, there are now over one million new homes that need to be retro-fitted with efficient energy systems, not to mention existing homes that need help with insulation and replacement fossil-free systems.
Whilst the commitment to a 10% biodiversity net gain is welcomed, it is woefully inadequate. We need to go much further, acknowledging the need for policy to address our biodiversity emergency and catastrophic species loss in which land use - and loss - plays a crucial role. The metrics for biodiversity net gain need to ensure that there is no further loss of species, or further destruction of irreplaceable habitat such as ancient woodlands or wetlands in assessment of areas for development and not assume that an ancient woodland can simply be ‘replaced’ elsewhere.
The proposals are strangely silent on transport and the all-important need for the planning system to ensure that development takes place only in sustainable places with a commitment to a major shift from car journeys to sustainable modes of transport. Planning policy has a crucial impact on tackling climate change by building the right homes in the right places, with minimal use of resources for travelling between the locations of home and work. All new homes should be designed suitably for working from home.
I don’t know about you but I am still waiting to see our, ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes and discover how our council responds to the ‘build back better’ rhetoric.
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