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September 2013: The Mayor has issued for public consultation draft supplementary planning guidance (SPG) on Sustainable Design and Construction, which sets out that all major planning applications for developments submitted to the GLA from 1 October 2013 will need to provide CO2 emission savings 40% beyond the 2010 building regulation requirements. This requirement was originally set out in the 2011 London Plan CO2 targets for residential and non-domestic buildings (Policy 5.2). The draft SPG is available here and the deadline for comments is 21 October 2013:

The SPG adds to the London Plan climate and energy policies by providing additional detail on:

• Optimising the use of passive design measures and energy efficiency solutions to help reduce energy consumption
• Setting out minimum requirements for energy masterplans
• Connecting to an existing district heating scheme
• the use of CHP and onsite heat networks (and references that further information can be found in the ‘District Heating Manual for London‘)

Pages 49-50 provide some helpful detail on the use of CO2 off-set funds stating that“Boroughs may agree with a developer for the developer to directly off-set any shortfall in carbon dioxide reductions from a scheme by installing a carbon dioxide saving project off-site. Measures could include directly funding or installing community energy and retrofitting projects”. On the price of carbon, the SPG says “Boroughs should develop and publish a price for carbon dioxide” – but goes on to provide an example of using the Zero Carbon Hub’s suggested price of £46 per tonne:

”  The overall contribution should be calculated over 30 years. For example,using the Zero Carbon Hub price equates to £46 x 30 years = £1,380 per tonne of carbon dioxide to be off-set.”

The guidance goes on to say: “It is essential that boroughs identify a suitable range of projects that can be funded through the carbon dioxide off-set fund. Preference should be given to retrofitting publicly owned property as this would provide wider community benefit. Initial discussions suggest that schools, council buildings and social housing are the buildings that could be retrofit most readily. Another option could be establishing a borough wide revolving energy fund, where a loan is provided to local residents or businesses wanting to retrofit energy and water saving measures.” Islington have recently published details of their own carbon offset fund – with a buy-out price starting at £950 – details here.

Paras 2.4.64 include some interesting new information with guidance on incorporating the use of demand side response measures, stating that:

“When negotiating with developers on planning applications, boroughs should encourage them to install systems that would enable the development to take advantage of demand side response … The Mayor has set up a permanent working interface with UK Power Networks to identify initiatives that each might take to support the development of demand side response measures within the UKPN network.“

September 2013: In line with Policy 5.2 of the London Plan, all major new developments submitted for planning in London are required to provide a detailed energy assessment as part of their planning application. The GLA has provided developers with additional guidance setting out in detail on how these assessments should be undertaken and, as a result of new planning energy targets being proposed by the Mayor (see below), a revised energy assessment guidance document has just been released.

The guidance has been updated to align with the Mayor’s recent proposals, set out in a draft Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) document on sustainable design and construction, that states that from 1st of October 2013, the Mayor will apply the 40% carbon reduction target (beyond Part L 2010) to all planning applications. This target has been set to work to the Government’s long-standing commitment for all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016.

Things have however become more complicated in the past few weeks… The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has recently announced a step-back in carbon requirements in their new building regulations standards for England, which will now come into operation with a delayed start-date of April 2014. At the same time however, the Government has continued to state their continued commitment to the 2016 zero carbon target. The GLA’s guidance document attempts to address this with the following statement:

“At this stage the target will remain 40% beyond 2010 Building Regulations. Following the announcement regarding the proposed changes to Part L of the Building Regulations by the Department of Communities and Local Government on the 30th July 2013 along with any new modelling considerations the Mayor is reviewing the implications for new developments. A further update of this guidance will be issued, if necessary, to reflect the changes to Part L of the Building Regulations coming into effect on the 6 April 2014 and the conclusions of the Housing Standards Review. This update will also reflect any changes to the Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) on Sustainable Design and Construction arising following consultation.”

The recently released GLA monitoring report on the implementation of the London Plan’s energy policies  clearly shows that the development industry can respond to challenging planning energy targets, and London is now seeing significant growth in climate-friendly buildings which are both highly energy efficient, and are also generating a proportion of their own heat and power needs through onsite decentralised energy generation technologies. At the same time, Government appears to be ignoring such evidence and is going backwards in its commitments on the development of low carbon buildings.