The draft of an 'emergency' SPD that was attached to the January blog
post has been presented to a Friends of the Earth 'emergency'
conference and, with their members' help, is now to be in a form [Climate and ecological emergency SPD] that FoE is prepared to promote and test with their contacts both in and outside local planning authorities.
The
model SPD includes the justification for an LPA drafting and adopting
such a document and makes the claim that it would be perverse not to do
so, especially for councils that have declared an emergency as most now
have done. It then sets out the areas which are under the control of the
planning system/regulations and to which development plan/local plan
policies would already apply. And then suggests how these policies
could operate in ways consistent with the climate and ecological
emergency.
The advantage of a SPD is the speed in which it
can be adopted compared to a new local plan (months instead of years),
implied by an emergency situation. Having an 'oven ready' version would
enable councils that are severely short of resources to cover this gap
in their formally adopted development plan documents. An SPD would not
necessarily 'get climate done' even at the local level, but it would
make available well grounded evidence for decision-makers (officers,
committees, appeal inspectors and the SoS) to take into account as a
material consideration under S38(6). Even if a SPD in this form would
stretch beyond the justification for this form of policy-making, a
guidance note along similar or identical lines would still receive
weight to the extent that it is based on a gamut of up to date and
official/Government advice.
