Another chapter in the Upper Heyford story

In October 2023 I thought that the planning fiasco that determined the future of the former Cold War air base at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire UK had reached a point where the story could be told and the subsequent ripples would be irritating but not significant. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ao76pbJEXou76QQTZzq7howyq76BZUqh/view?usp=sharing I could not have been more wrong. In late 2025 the owners made a planning application for 9000 houses as a pre-emptive strike to gain support from the New Towns Taskforce set up by the Labour Government that had became increasingly aware that building 1.5m new homes a year would not be achievable. And the identification of Upper Heyford was then picked up by the Oxfordshire Growth Commission in its attempt to stoke the construction fire. In normal times there would be close to zero chance of development at scale being allowed on the best preserved remains from the Cold War that is a conservation area including listed buildings and scheduled monuments. But, having pointed out the devastating effect the development would have on this site of pre-eminent heritage value, Historic England advise Cherwell District Council that it understands the need for more housebuilding! 'Normal times' clearly include compromise and hipocracy, dissembling and dissimulation. The fact that neither the New Towns Taskforce nor the Growth Commission consulted Historic England might have made no difference if heritage counts for so little. Even remembering that it is the Cold War that is being represented at Upper Hayford and there seems to be a certain amount of ignorance being displayed about this seismic event. It also transpires that Historic England managed to advise Cherwell District Council on the best preserved remains in Europe, that are also a significant part of US heritage, without reference to the international conventions on heritage and culture agreed at Paris, Granada and Valetta. If these conventions do not apply to a largely intact Cold War air base they might as well be scrapped. On 6 January there was an opportunity to see Emma Squire and Ian Morrison Historic England's CEO and Director of Policy respectively giving evidence to the Culture Parliamantary Select Committee on the subject of 'built heritage' claiming that the UK is taking a leading role in the international responsibilties for protecting heritage assets and capital. No mention of the relevant conventions and how they are being ignored. No mention of the World Heritage Sites in the UK where the status is being threatened. And no mention of the recommendation of the 2011 Panel considering applications for inclusion on the WHS tentative list where the Cold War is un®epresented. No mention of the research that required to see whether Upper Heyford should be included in what they envisaged would be a trans-national designation. Unfortunately I cannot report on the outcome of the current application that seems to be undecided, or the decision of the Labour Government on what new towns should be designated. But comments can still be made via and Cherwell Planning Portal on application number 25/02190/HYBRID and representations to Matthew Pennycook MP the housing and planning minister on how heritage value should sometimes take precedence over housebuilding. Historic England and the Council members and officers are already sharing space in the hall of shame for those whose job it has been to protect Upper Heyford from the degradation it has suffered over the last 30 years. It is quite conceivable that their institutions and the planning system will be further discredited by an approval of this monstrous development. As a last gasp to forestall or prevent this from happening Historic England has been asked to confirm to Cherwell DC that its letter was flawed by its failure to advise on the effects of the relevant international conventions, that the new town taskforce and growth commission should not be relied on and, finally, that HE understands that it should belatedly be doing the research required by the 2011 Panel into the potential of a World Heritage Site designation. Manwhile I will summon the energy to describe this latest chapter of Cold War denial as an addendum to the e-book.

Custom building update

This is a blog about the law relating to self and custom building and how it is working. The Government publicise data on the working of the Act that shows between 31 October 2022 and 30 October 2023, - 4,849 new individuals joined the register and 2,436 were removed, a net increase of 2,413 • 64,233 individuals were on the register as at 30 October 2023, an increase of 4% from 31 October 2022[ • 81 new groups joined the register and 28 were removed, a net increase of 53 • 747 groups were on the register as at 30 October 2023, an increase of 8% from 31 October 2022[ • 5,182 planning permissions were granted for serviced plots suitable for self and custom build, a decrease of 18% from the previous year There is a three year rolling programme so relating households and groups to the provision cannot be exact but there seems to be a considerable shortfall in supply. And demand seems to be growing if not to the levels found by NACSBA in their Mori survey that several million households would like to custom build.The increase in 'groups' is also interesting. In my much more limited survey I can find no recognition of the potential of custom-splitting as a way of meeting the demand for custom-building, meeting housing needs through more efficient use of existing housing stock, ensuring that space and fabric being insulated and heated is meeting housing needs, improving mobility and accessibility and reducing the need for new building with upfront carbon emitted at levels that threaten carbon budgets for the whole economy. I have asked the Department of Housing and Communities whether the above data represents a satisfactory implementation of the Act requiring a proportionate number of serviced plots to be provided and will blog the reply. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/self-build-and-custom-housebuilding

Hoisted by its own petard or the Climate Change Act

The Labour Government seems to have lost any sense its members might have had about the legal requirement to comply with the Climate Chnage Act 2008 that was its branchild. Two Tory attempts to produce a compliant carbon reduction plan were rejected by the High Court and Labour has until May 2025 to do better. The main thrust of policy is to generate economic growth which is not a distraction from complying with carbon reduction budgets but, the ways in which Labour proposing, will inevitably fail and presumably attract the ire of the Courts. The 1.5m new houses (some in remote green belt locations and new settlements) could wipe out the whole carbon budget were they to occur (highly unlikely given the way in which the housing inductry is configured). Then there is an announcement that all the expansion plans of regional airports (and road building) are being supported. Under the radar is the electrification of the steel production industry that had been reliant on coal. There is now the quantum leap in AI that implies a massive increase in internet servers. And there are policies and incentives supporting the electrification of heating and road transport. The former is reliant on heat pumps (boiler upgrade scheme) and the latter on charging a growing fleet of millions of EV cars, vans, lorries and buses. If the building industry moves to Modern Methods of Construction this will add to the demand for electricity. Those vehicles being replaced will continue to emit greenhouse gases, and drive at inefficient and highly polluting speeds unless they are re-powered and the speed limit is reduced to 50mph (or below). Some of this growth will maintain if not increase the demand for fossil fuels and some will exceed the ability of the generators and distributors to supply low carbon electricity. I can't see any sector that will reduce demand to any material extent and I doubt that the Court will be convinced by the promises of carbon capture or any other carbon negative technologies. And all this will be occurring as global temperatures have moved past 1.5 degrees C and after the Prime Minister has been on record as increasing the Government's ambition in terms of the speed of carbon reduction??

Presumption in favour of sustainable development

This blog post is for those with an interest in how the planning system operates in England so apologies for those lucky enough to be living and/or working elsewhere. In 2012 the newish Tory Government introduced the National Planning Policy Framework and the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Greg Clark, the minister at the time, did a reasonable job of defining ‘sustainable development’, before the discovery that this would put a brake on urban development that was a significant contributor to carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. From then on the ‘presumption’ operated as a balance tilted towards development with little or no concern about sustainability and the environmental impacts. The Labour Government in 2024 has picked up the baton and decided new development should be accelerated in the pursuit of economic growth. The extent or depth of the denial of the importance of sustainability can be judged by Labour’s revised NPPF that continues with the presumption in favour of sustainable development at the same time as acknowledging that the upfront or embodied carbon from new development is a problem. Come May 2025 when the Government’s carbon reduction plan will be scrutinized by the Courts the problem of upfront carbon from development could be a decisive issue. At a recent housing seminar at the London School of Economics and Political Science Prof Becky Tunstall thought that the issue of embodied carbon emissions justified consideration of a ‘presumption against new housebuilding’. This would not be a moratorium on housebuilding but would enable the planning system to select those forms of new houses that would meet genuine housing need; social housing, housing for older people, co-housers, self/custom-builders, conversions and sub-divisions. If these sustainable forms of housing continued to be permitted as a percentage of general market housing then the overshooting of carbon budgets would be inevitable. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800922002245. Incidentally, this paper was cited twice in the December issue of the TCPA Journal. And Tamworth and Litchfield tried and failed at appeal to successfully argue that the level of under-occupancy should be taken into account when calculating the housing land supply – a good attempt which requires more robust data and policy backup. Mental gymnastics should be unnecessary in the application of planning policy and law and I would recommend practitioners reverting to the original presumption, the one in favour of sustainable development, and ask appeal inspectors and the courts as may be necessary, to find general purpose housing unsustainable due to excessive upfront/embodied carbon (and car dependency) that conflicts with the way in which everybody but the ‘planners’ have been using the word/concept. Why set up a new presumption when the original, that has been accepted by an unwary Labour Government in its latest NPPF, should do?

Impacts of new housebuilding

Much of my time and energy is spent working with One Planet Abingdon Climate Emergency Centre. The principles of one planet living created by Bioregional have been adopted and the idea of a climate emergency centres emerged from Trust the People. More about the the centre can be found at Oneplanetabingdon.org. Every three months we change the focus of our work that from Oct to Dec 2024 is on the impacts of new housebuilding. As a chartered town planner, who is expected to be looking for ways to solve the shortage of decent and affordable homes, it has not been easy to oppose the building of new houses as the politically correct response. A shortage normally implies the need to increase supply. However, if the means of supply causes even greater problems that it might soleve then there should be no hestation to look for alternatives. This is our current project and a survey has been designed to find out what others are thinking. Could I impose on the readers of this blog to spend a few minutes adding to the richness of the data that we will be analysing in December? https://oneplanetabingdon.org/survey-on-the-impact-of-new-housebuilding/ And please pass on to any or all of your contacts. If the link does not work then going t the web site and scrolling under Green Forum to the last item should access the survey Meanwhile I have several unpublished letters written to the Guardian that continues to back new housebuilding. The Government, Labour Together, Labour Housing Group and Labour Policy Forum all refuse to acknowledge the conflict between housing and both carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. Housebuilding is so integral to the Government's plans for growth than an alternative strategy based on refitting and sub-divisions cannot be considered seriously.

Repowering and sharing fossil cars

I recently learned that Vauxhall (they are part of a conglomerate including other brands) are thinking about giving up car production in the UK due to the "mandate" which requires 20% of its production to be EVs. The problem being that demand for its EVs is not sufficient to enable the company to produce ICEs in the numbers required for profitability. I have written an yunpublished letter to the press (The Guardian), to Citroen (the make of car we are driving) and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (also with no reply) suggesting that a whole production line be dedicated to the re-powering of ICEs by replacing the petrol or diesekl engine with an e equivalent and battery. This would save scrappig the chassis, wheels, windows, body and upholstery. I estimate that giving this job to one of the smaller ans specialist garages would cost far mopre than the car is worth. Doing the job at scale could be half the cost and much cheaper than buying a new EV. Please tell me if I am wrong about the benefits that could be derived from this approach to electrifying road transport. Buses, trucks and dust carts are already being re-powered but it would but affordable re-powering of cars would have far more impact. If this would just sustain car dependency then please ignore this blog. I actually hope that other measures will assist in the change from individual car ownership car sharing of many kinds.

A carbon literacy test for Labour

The new government is adamant about its manifesto based right to do what it can to boost annual housebuilding rates to 370,000 to reach 1.5million new homes by 2029. It could not be unaware that the upfront or embodied carbon emissions from this scale of new building will be hard to contain within the carbon budgets set in accordance with the Climate Change Act 1990 as amended. This was legislation drafted by Ed Milliband the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero but has not publically questioned those chanting ‘build, build, build,’ so that the economy can ‘grow, grow, grow’ I am not in the planning business to advocate to increase or maintain the shocking levels of homelessness. But I fail to see sufficient connection between the new housing estates being built, permitted and planned on the edge of towns and villages, on ‘grey belt’ land and in new settlements and those living on the street or in sub-standard temporary accommodation. Neither do I see any real prospect of 29m dwellings being brought up to a zero carbon standard in the next few years. So there is a way of addressing both housing needs and carbon emissions that readers of the blog will know by heart. https://redbrickblog.co.uk/2023/06/sub-dividing-properties-to-meet-carbon-budgets/ The previous Government had not just one but two transition plans/carbon budgets found to be illegal for incompatibility with the Climate Change Act. No minister of official responsible for this travesty was fined or put in prison, unlike those who are arrested and charged with drawing these successive Government failures to the attention of the public. It seems to be more than likely that the new Government will see the manifesto commitment to housebuilding as a reason to sidestep responsible and legal carbon budgeting. There is the Future Building Standards and the NPPF consultation that could reference and Paul Brannen’s book Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate change were the Government interested in at least reducing upfront emissions. I doubt that the additional reliance on wood would be sufficient especially when new services and infrastructure is involved. But I would like to be proved wrong.