Recently, I was asked to give a seminar for @MHCLG’s planners on the challenges faced by local authority planners delivering against the #climateemergency, because I work with lots of councils & I’m also Cabinet Member for Forward Planning at @CotswoldDC. So I know some stuff.
First up, I did the ‘we’re all doomed’ bit. You know, the rollercoaster graphs steeply going up and the even steeper graphs of how emissions need to come down.
Then I mentioned about how most plans are running for about another 10-15 years and they need re-writing immediately because most of them pay diddly-squat attention to the ‘what goes up must come down graphs’ from the ‘we’re all doomed’ bit.
I mentioned that I haven’t yet met a local authority that trusts @MHCLG's Ministers on #climatechange, and that good #planners across the land tell me that progress has been in spite of, rather than because of national policy. They secretly share their revolutionary policies...
At that point, I thought it worth mentioning that councils also know that the generation of plans we write now are the last chance saloon for the planning system to play a remotely meaningful role in tackling the #ClimateEmergency, and they really need @GOVUK to step up and help.
I also thought it worth mentioning that there is literally no more long grass to kick this into. The houses we build now will still be here in 2050, and will have to be retrofitted almost immediately to hit our #CarbonReduction targets.
Then I said, I feel stupid telling you the BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS, but the time at which the largest number of homes are in the control of the smallest number of actors is at the #planning stage. At this stage, councils should be able to ask for sensible things that all homes need.
It makes sense to demand #zerocarbonhomes at this point. At this point, we don’t have to deal with the end user ever again. Whether buying or renting, they end up with a zero-carbon home.
But right now we’re delivering housing that is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit. Of course, @MHCLG doesn’t really need to care about this, because that will be @BEISgovuk’s job. But I do wonder whether @HMTreasury have clocked this inter-departmental transfer of costs?
It will be folks @BEISgovuk who will have to run complex schemes to give grants so householders can retrofit. Grants which many people won't take up, and which will in any case lead to all the same perversities we see in the existing #retrofit market. cse.org.uk/news/view/2428
So, just to make myself clear, I described what I’d do if I were to set out on purpose to design the most expensive, most inefficient scheme for delivering #ZeroCarbonHomes, that would have the worst outcomes for low-income areas.
I’d explained that I'd let developers build what they want, where they want. Then, once the crappy, overheating boxes were up and running, I’d ask the government department with responsibility for energy to come in and try to fix what I’d done.
I’d wait till those million new homes had passed out of the design and planning stage, into the ownership of a million individuals, private & social landlords, and then I’d try to develop a series of #retrofit grant schemes to try to appeal to each of those audiences.
I’d hire a lot of new staff, at great expense to the #taxpayers, to give out a lot of money, at great expense to the taxpayer.
First up, I'd have one scheme that tried to appeal to the best instincts of the wealthy middle classes.
First up, I'd have one scheme that tried to appeal to the best instincts of the wealthy middle classes.
I’d have another scheme with a bit more in the way of regulatory teeth that I’d beat #socialhousing providers with.
I’d have something else that I waved ineffectually at private landlords while they whined to their MPs about the terrible cost this would be to their business model. And I’d accept that there was no way I’d get anywhere near 100% take up of any of these schemes in any case.
On the other hand, if I wanted to develop a #decarbonisation plan for new homes that offered the least cost to society, & the most additionality, I’d do it through the planning system & building regs, at the one and only point where a developer can be told what they have to do.
I’d skill up an army of policy & DM officers to drive it through. I’d do it when those million homes were really in the power of only a very small number of actors, all using a core framework that comprehensively drove the market for #zerocarbonhomes. (Didn't we have that once)?
And I’d do it at the only point where genuine #placemaking can be done. All that BEIS can do after that fact is offer individual households support to change their building. They can’t retrofit the decent #PublicTransport and #ActiveTransport links that cut car dependency...
..they can’t come up with a grant scheme that miraculously re-orients houses so they can generate energy, or offer grants to increase garden size for bike storage, or a place to dry clothes outside, & they can’t make green space for #adaptation & #CarbonSequestration.
They won’t be able to raise the houses above flood level, grant-aid to change internal layouts to maximise cross ventilation. Just expensive insulation, heat pump & solar schemes that would have cost society less if done at the outset, & that will never reach everyone anyway.
Unfortunately, it seems some of my suggestions on how NOT to build zero carbon places were somehow taken out of context and used to write the #planningreform White Paper. I can only apologise.
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