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going t the web site and scrolling under Green Forum to the last item should access the survey Meanwhile I have several unpublished letters written to the Guardian that continues to back new housebuilding.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.

The significance of upfront carbon

I have just emerged from a public inquiry that is the result of the Secretary of State recovering the decision to be made on whether a road should be built across south Oxfordshire to serve seeveral thousand new houses planned for the area. The claim being made in support of the road is that it would result in a reduction of carbon emissions. The expert evidence that includes an environmental statement suggested that the very substantial carbon embodied in the building of the road would soon be compensated for through avoiding the gridlock that would occur without the new road. This claim was supported by the chartered civil engineer who specialises in this susbject, the three planning officers representing the county and district councils and the planning consultant ("our practice is always supporting sustainable development") paid by the county to support the application/appeal. The second schoolchild error made by these highly qualified experts was to claim that the carbon emissions involved were "insignificant". I suggetsed that what might appear to insignificant to an emgineer in Didcot might not look the same to a farmer in Bangladesh or a fisherman on a Pacific Island. And what might be insignificant when a mile from a cliff edge was highly significant if we had reached a cliff edge or tipping point. There would not be much good in avoiding carbon emissions one we had fallen over the edge. And then there was me. A chunk of my evidence was taken from the code of p[ractice that applies tp all chartered planners; members of the Royal Town Planning Institute,that points out the paramount importance of reducing carbon emissions. Nobody referred to the expection that climate change should be determinative of the decision. This was aimed primarily at the inspector who was MRTPI. The resto of the proof of evidence explained that upfront carbon emissions were certain and damaging and the carbon avoided from a more efficient transport system was speculative and not necessarility dependent on a new road. Twelve different measures were identified that could have reduced carbon emissions without the road; road user charging, APPGI/ICE report, road user charging, workplace parking levy, lower speed limits, electrification, car sharing, automation, public transport, active travel including E-bikes, and working from home, and/or the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan? The claim by the county that all these possibilities had been in the transport modelwas never discussed but obviously the model which "predicted" an 80% modal shift for all traffic if the road was built could have been adjusted to find a combination of these measures that would shift say 50% of traffic from private car without the road. The point of a model is to investigate "decide or vision and provide". As a mere interested party it was made difficult to be involved in the inquiry. However, my final contributiton was to encourage the inspector to write a report that would recommend the rejection of the road on grounds of the significant level of upfront carbon emissions in a way that would survive legal challenge, unlike the refusal of the replacement of the M&S Oxford Street store where the Secretary of State had seen the upfront emissions being unacceptable despite of promises of a more efficient replacement building. Framing of the decision would be critical and I had given uncotested evidence to make that possible.

Upfront carbon

In refusing permission for the redevelopment of the M&S Oxford Street store against the recommendation of his inspector,Michael Gove the Secretary of State for DLUHC relied on the unacceptable level of upfront carbon emissions. This is the sensible term applied to embodied emissions that occur in the short term before the relatively low emissions from and energy efficient replacement building kick in. I particularly like the evidence given by Susan Barfield who "... highlighted that the IPCC told us in 2018 that we have 12 years to avoid a catastrophe, and we see growing evidence all around the world that it is happening – with floods, droughts, fires and melting ice caps. Instead of acting as if there is an emergency, by proposing to throw a huge carbon bomb unnecessarily into the atmosphere, the scheme misunderstands the urgency of our situation. What the science tells us is that what we do in the next 8 years is critical. The brief here was clearly to maximise the site’s potential and the architects have fulfilled their brief well – creating a building minimising operational carbon that 5-8 years ago would have been considered fine. However, now that we understand the upfront impact of embodied carbon it really isn’t. Particularly building two extra basements! They are the worst in terms of embodied carbon.” This decision should make it hard to justify building 300,000 houses every year instead of devising ways to use the under-used space in the existing housing stock. The use of unwanted retail space in town centres as being proposed by the PM would be a step in the right direction but is very unlikely to be sufficient. Sub-dividing some of just a small proportion of the 28m existing dwellings would meet genuine housing needs, including an element of custom-splitting (see numerous previous blog posts).

Too little too late or climate tittle tattle

The planning and development industry is becoming increasingly frustrated with the Government's attitude and approach to both mitigating climate chnage and nature recovery. A letter has been sent coordinated by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) and sent to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, levelling up secretary Michael Gove, environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, and energy secretary Grant Shapps. It claims that the planning system is not providing a consistent approach to handling climate change and environmental considerations resulting in delays, costs, and legal challenges. The 100 businesses that have signed the letter are calling on the government to strengthen the current planning bill by including “a new, clear legal duty for planning decisions and plan-making to explicitly align with the UK’s carbon budgets and adaptation goals under the Climate Change Act 2008, and nature restoration targets under the Environment Act 2021”. The letter is on the UKGBC web site.All these businesses should be taking posve action while they wait for a response. Unfortunately the Government is preoccupied by fighting off legal challenges to its dangerously ill informed approach to climate change; the Saltcross Garden Village, coal mining, airport expansions and north sea oil licensing. Instead of steering the UK onto a path consistent with the carbon budgets set by the Climate Change Committee it continues to make unwarranted claims about world leadership and claims that Lord Callanan at Beis is still, after 5 years of trying, up to the job of insulating over 20m sub-standard dwellings to address both fuel poverty and carbon emissions. Having it explained that deploying carbon negative technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere could trigger rebound effect as carbon will re-emerge from the oceans Beis have confirmed that this effect is not taken into account in the Energy Bill as the focus should be on reducing emissions in the first place. And the Climate Change Committee are issuing its progress report on 28 June 2023 which should analyses the impact of building large numbers of houses with high levels of embodied carbon. Suggestions are welcomed for a collective noun for well meaning but useless individuals and organisations that are failing to deal effectively with carbon emissions that build the Keeling Curve showing concentrations at 424ppm

Builders not blockers but carbon blind

It is not everyday that the Guardian publishes my letter. This is the theme of a Blog sent to rd Brick, rejected on Any Answers but accepted by the paper on second asking subject to a little editing. "Promising to be the "builders not the blockers" might be good electioneering but suggests that Labour is attempting to sidestep carbon budgets when making its policies (Labour plan to free up land to tackle housing crisis 30 May). If new housing is to be added to the existing surplus (currently about one million more dwellings than households) it must be right to focus on registered providers building houses on cheaper land, preferably at social rent. But the proposed 300,000 new dwellings a year would result in carbon emissions embodied in the houses and associated services equivalent to 113% of the carbon budget for the whole of the economy. The crisis is caused by the grossly unfair distribution of housing and, in particular, under-occupation is at unsustainable levels. About 50% of the space and fabric required to be insulated and heated is not meeting housing needs. As under-occupation is also a main cause in the closing of local schools (Primary schools in cities at risk as families move to cheaper areas 30 May) this is where Labour should be focusing its attention." It's nice to have an audience but Labour will take no notice.