APPENDIX 16
Memorandum from the Environment Agency
SUMMARY
The Environment Agency (the Agency) believes
that the cross-Government interest in housing and construction
demonstrated through the Sustainable Communities Plan and the
commissioning of the Barker Review, provides an opportunity to
move towards a strategic approach to planning household growth
and more sustainable forms of construction and buildings. The
quality of new housing, particularly the standard of environmental
performance, must be aligned with proposals for accelerating household
growth. Without improved standards, Government housing policy
cannot be considered sustainable. In particular, the Agency believes:
Too many buildings are environmentally
inefficient and do not make best use of limited resources such
as energy and water.
The construction process itself has
negative environmental implications, particularly for waste management,
pollution incidents and land take.
Buildings need to be located in the
right place. This means avoiding areas of unacceptable environmental
risk such as flood plains and locating homes in places where existing
infrastructure is already in place.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Environment Agency is the principal
environmental advisor to the Government and the Welsh Assembly.
The Agency has a broad interest in the environmental performance
of housing and its construction, and would like to see its detrimental
environmental impacts reduced. More specifically:
As consultees on land use planning,
we advise on where buildings and infrastructure should be located
to reduce environmental impacts and flood risk.
As regulators of waste and discharges
our role is to ensure construction waste is managed safely and
to drive a reduction in construction pollution and waste volume.
As the organisation with a statutory
duty for strategic water resources planning, our role is to ensure
homes are built in places that have the water capacity to support
them, and to standards that encourage efficient water use.
2. MAIN HEADINGS
Question 1: Are the conclusions of the Barker
Review compatible with the general principles of sustainable development
and the Government's own sustainable development objectives?
2.1 The principle message from the Barker
Review is that current annual housing completions need to be increased
to meet the demand for affordable and other housing and to bring
about stability in house prices. The Agency believes that this
increase in the quantity of housing completions can only be sustainable
if the environmental performance of new buildings is significantly
improved and detrimental environmental impacts of the construction
process reduced.
2.2 The Barker Review's terms of reference
included the interaction of the housebuilding industry with Government's
sustainable development objectives. However, the Review focused
on the economic objectives of sustainable development and increasing
the amount of social housing. Greater appreciation of the environmental
dimensions of household growth is now needed to ensure that emerging
proposals are compatible with, and supportive of the environmental
pillar of sustainable development.
2.3 In particular the Agency would like
to see further analysis of how increased household growth will
impact on the prudent use of natural resources and the effective
protection of the environment. This analysis is vital if we are
to manage the increasing demands being placed on the environment.
For example, even under current projections of growth we know
that:
Over 15,000 megalitres of water per
day are put into the public water supply. Household water demand
is rising (UK Government, Quality of Life Counts 2004 Indicator
D7). Yet we are facing greater uncertainty of water supply
with climate change.
45% of the UK's solid waste goes
to landfill (UK Government, Quality of Life Counts 2004 Headline
Indicator H15) and household waste production has been rising
since 1995-96.
Increased flood risk due to climate
change means that annual damages from flooding may rise from around
£100 million at present to between £460 million (Local
Stewardship) and £2,500 million (World Markets)
by 2080 under various economic scenarios (www.foresight.gov.uk).
Nearly 30% of the UK's CO2 emissions
come from the domestic sector. The gap remains considerable between
the current situation and the aspirations in the Energy White
Paper 2003, where "new homes will be designed to need very
little energy and will perhaps even achieve zero carbon emissions"
by 2020.
Question 2: In view of the Barker Review is
there are need for an overarching national strategy to ensure
that the environment is at the heart of any building programme?
2.4 The Government is currently reviewing
its sustainable development strategy. The Agency expects the new
strategy to underpin all Government policiesincluding those
for household growthand ensure environmental aspects are
balanced with social and economic goals.
2.5 The Agency welcomed the Sustainable
Communities Plan as a strategic approach to planning and delivering
household growth. Strategic growth can accommodate design and
delivery principles which reduce environmental impacts such as
management of construction waste and water efficiency. It should
also support better integration between household and neighbourhood
design with accessibility for essential services. Sustainable
communities must be more than a building programme if the Government
is to secure its sustainable development goals.
2.6 A critical strand of a strategic approach
is higher environmental performance in homes. The Agency supports
the Sustainable Buildings Task Group's call for an immediate increase
in water and energy efficiency in new homes through Building Regulations
and the introduction of a national Code for Sustainable Buildings.
This new Code would deliver the improved quality of new homes
and communities proposed in the Egan Review. As the scope of the
Code includes the standards of new homes and the building process,
its adoption would drive both improved environmental performance
of buildings and a reduction in the impacts caused during construction.
Question 3a: Is the current planning system
robust enough to ensure that the environmental implications of
building projects are fully taken into account?
2.7 The planning system has an integral
role in ensuring the environment is at the heart of any building
programme. The reformed spatial planning system set out in the
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act should promote sustainable
development. This should now be reflected in all Planning Policy
Statements and accompanying guidance. This means:
Helping to produce a pattern of development
that meets economic, social and environmental needs for present
and future generations.
A planning system that translates
the principles contained in the UK's Sustainable Development Strategy
into a spatial context over a period of at least 20 years (the
"lifetime" of Regional Spatial Strategies).
Better links between national commitments,
such as the Energy White Paper energy efficiency targets, the
Government's national waste strategy and planning.
2.8 We remain concerned that the planning system
does not adequately take into account the infrastructure requirements
of development. Although the Government's proposals for RSSs and
LDFs place more emphasis on the need to take infrastructure requirements
into account, there are significant tensions between proposals
for growth in the South East which suffer from a water supply
deficit, shortages of waste handling facilities and poor air quality.
The current planning system does not allow resource efficiency
to be taken into account in development plan allocations or planning
applications, other than ensuring that sufficient infrastructure
is planned to serve the development. This approach mitigates against
prudent use of resources.
2.9 Neither does the planning system encourage
consideration of environmental impacts over the whole lifetime
of development. Indeed, the "lifetime" of development
is not defined in Government guidance. Development causes impacts
from its pre-construction phases (for example aggregate extraction
and the use of energy to make building materials) to potentially
long after it has been demolished, in the case of contaminated
land. The planning system should more explicitly recognise these
impacts and attempt to avoid environmental damage, promote positive
environmental impacts, and reduce and internalise adverse effects.
Question 3b: How can the planning system be
used to increase the building of more sustainable housing?
2.10 The Agency welcomed the recognition
in draft PPS1 that spatial planning should contribute to the prudent
use of resources and take into account long term costs and benefits.
However, the language used in that section of the draft PPS was
relatively weaker and focused on energy at the expense of other
vital resources such as water, minerals, and so on. The Agency
urged that the PPS:
must ensure that the sustainable
development planning purpose delivers development that meets economic,
social and environmental needs simultaneously;
should consistently refer to the
aim of environmental protection and enhancement;
should place more emphasis on the
prudent use of natural resources and provide clear advice on the
specific role of planning in securing resource efficiency and
sustainable construction. Energy and water efficiency of development
should become material planning considerations;
must provide better advice on how
to encourage positive planning and the delivery of quality development,
including through an updated sustainable development and planning
good practice guide;
should give more explicit recognition
to the role of spatial planning in dealing with risks, especially
the potential impacts of climate change (including on flood risk)
and provide clear advice on how spatial planning objectives can
be delivered; and
should recognise the enhanced role
of statutory consultees, such as the Agency, in pre-application
discussions and encourage local planning authorities and developers
to seek statutory consultees views as early as possible in plan
preparation or project development.
2.11 The Agency supports the Sustainable
Buildings Task Group's recommendation that PPS1 be accompanied
by a best practice guide for sustainable buildings. This guide
should address measures that can be promoted through the planning
system to promote aspects of sustainable housing that cannot be
directly influenced through Building Regulations. Examples include:
Improved water efficiency in development
design and layout.
Reduction in the use of materials
during the construction process.
Renewable energy generation.
The guide should also explain the complementary
roles of the building regulations and the planning system.
2.12 The Agency believes that environmental
capacity and the demands that development makes on natural resources
(and associated infrastructure) should be more explicitly recognised
in planning policies. This should be done by making the energy
and water efficiency of development a material planning consideration.
This particularly applies to parts of the country where major
growth is planned. For example, the Agency is currently working
with Regional Assemblies to integrate various natural resource
issues into Regional Spatial Strategies. Its work with the South
East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) includes identifying how
water resources will be affected by major growth in Ashford[24].
This approach offers more flexibility in considering options for
growth in areas where environmental capacity is limited. This
flexibility extends to the overall amount of development, its
location and its phasing. It will also help to meet all of the
Government's sustainable development objectives.
Question 4a: Where will the proposed new housing
be built?
2.13 The Sustainable Communities Plan clearly
identified the location of new homes in the South East. It is
not yet clear where the extra homes proposed in the Barker Review
will be located although it is likely that many will be located
in the South East. The location of new homes will determine their
environmental impact. It is critical that proposals should:
Avoid inappropriate development in
areas at risk of flooding.
Reduce the risk of flooding through
the use of sustainable drainage schemes.
Protect and enhance the quality of
water resources including aquifers, rivers, streams, lakes and
seawater, consistent with the requirements of the Water Framework
Directive.
Recognise that the availability of
water resources should influence the location, quantity and phasing
of development and the need to encourage water efficiency in new
development.
Contribute to the objectives of the
National Air Quality Strategy.
Encourage waste minimisation and
provision of space for separated waste in new developments.
Protect important habitats and encourage
enhanced biodiversity by contributing to Biodiversity Action Plans.
Be informed by adapting to climate
change.
Be phased to reduce the need for
essential environmental infrastructure.
Question 4b: What are the implications for
land-use and flood risk of the large-scale proposed building projects?
2.14 The Agency supports the precautionary
sequential approach advocated in PPG25 that seeks to prevent inappropriate
development in floodplains. We also note PPG25 states that the
potential effects of climate change may be a 20% increase in peak
river flows. In its review of PPG25 during 2004-05, the Agency
will be seeking more explicit recognition of the likely effects
of climate change. Nearly two million homes and businesses in
England and Wales are at risk from flooding with a value of over
£220 billion and affecting nearly five million people (10%
of the population). This situation will be exacerbated by climate
change and the Agency would like to see PPG25 strengthened and
the Agency to become a statutory consultee on flood risk.
2.15 In 2002-03 planning applications objected
to by the Agency on flood risk grounds rose by 80% on 2001-02
to 4,523 in England, mainly because many developers ignored the
Government's advice in PPG25 and submitted planning applications
without a flood risk assessment. In 2002-03 the number of sustained
objections on flood risk made by the Agency in England where the
outcome is known rose to 1,047 cases. Of these 826 were in line
with Agency advice while 221 went against the Agency (21%).
2.16 The Agency has already recommended
to the Government that PPS1 contains more explicit recognition
of the role of spatial planning in dealing with risks that the
environment poses to development and people and, in particular,
the threat of flooding that will be made worse by climate change.
The recently published Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Project
indicates that annual damages from flooding may rise from around
£100 million at present to between £460 million (Local
Stewardship) and £2,500 million (World Markets)
by 2080 under various economic scenarios[25].
We believe the PPS should highlight the strategic planning issues
arising from climate change more forcefully.
2.17 The Agency supports sustainable drainage
measures which, through mimicking natural drainage processes,
avoid adding to flood risks both at a development site and elsewhere
in the catchment. The Agency's policy with regard to the discharge
of surface water is to oppose any development, including housing,
which will aggravate existing or create new flooding problems
either on the site or elsewhere by way of additional surface water
discharge direct into a watercourse. Appropriate sustainable drainage
techniques control surface run-off as close to its origin as possible
and, as well as contributing to flood risk management, can provide
benefits for water quality and amenity, and will help to reduce
the potential tension between the need for high density development
and for the "greening" (or improved sustainability)
of the urban environment.
Question 5: Is it possible to ensure materials
and resources used, and waste produced, during building do not
have a harmful impact on the environment?
2.18 The Agency believes it is possible
to improve the resource efficiency of the building process. The
Agency supports the recommendation of the Sustainable Buildings
Task Group that Building Regulations should be revised to specify
a minimum percentage of by value (at least 10%) of re-used / reclaimed
/ recycled materials in building projects. The Agency also supports
the widespread adoption of Site Waste Management Plans once they
have been trailed with the industry.
2.19 Since 2001, fly-tipping and other forms
of illegal waste activity tackled by the Agency has increased
by more than 40%. Local authorities are also reporting increases
in the amount fly-tipping they tackle. The need to increase the
completion rate of new housing could worsen this problem. Waste
from construction, demolition and excavation operations is a big
problem in some parts of the countryfor example, in areas
of London, 40% of fly-tips dealt with by the Agency include these
sort of wastes. The construction industry needs to make a concerted
effort to better control the wastes that they produce so as to
prevent it being illegally dumped.
2.20 Accompanying guidance to PPS1 as suggested
in paragraph 2.15, and a national code for sustainable buildings
would support those developers and local authorities wishing to
act in a more sustainable manner, especially if the guidance provided
information on sustainable construction techniques. We are willing
to assist with the preparation of this Guide.
Question 6: Are the building regulations as
they stand capable of ensuring that new housing is truly sustainable
in the long term? How could they be improved? Could greater use
be made of existing environmental standards for housing?
2.21 There are sustainability improvements
to be made that are already within the scope of the Building Regulations.
Statutory minimum levels of resource efficiency are required in
buildings, particularly on energy and water efficiency and recycled
waste used during construction. This has the potential to deliver
cost savings to house owners and occupiers, and constructors.
2.22 The Agency supports the statements
by the Deputy Prime Minister in July 2003 and October 2003, that
20-30% water efficiency savings are feasible and crucial. The
Agency also supports the recommendation by the Sustainable Buildings
Task Group that the Government should regulate for a 25% saving
on average per capita water consumption, most probably through
the Building Regulations. Similarly, a 25% energy efficiency improvement
should be put in place under Part L of the Building Regulations
by 2005 and the provision of space for the separate collection
of recyclable materials in multi-occupancy buildings should be
incorporated in the Building Regulations in the same timeframe.
There is no legal obstacle to further work in these specific areas.
2.23 Despite the above opportunities for
progression, there is no explicit statutory requirement that the
Building Regulations should cover sustainable development. Without
this statutory requirement the Building Regulations cannot ensure
that new housing is truly sustainable. The Sustainable and Secure
Buildings Bill will be a significant step forward in ensuring
that sustainability is a legitimate part of the regulations and
will increase their scope to include a wider range of issues,
such as flood resilience.
2.24 It is vital that the Government urgently
improves the enforcement of the Building Regulations. A significant
improvement in the sustainability of all new housing will only
be achieved if the performance of buildings constructed under
the Building Regulations is adequately checked and monitored.
There is a need for discussion with local authorities about the
performance of building control departments and approved inspectors,
and whether they are adequately resourced and trained for their
existing duties and additional ones to be brought about by new
requirements.
2.25 The Agency supports the Sustainable
Buildings Task Group's view that the present reliance on checking
"robust details" in building design may not be adequate
in delivering the required levels of sustainability. Poor site
practice, or inadequate skills in the appropriate building techniques,
can lead to performance improvements being lost. Reliable post-completion
checks should be conducted on a proportion of all new and refurbished
buildings.
Question 7: How will it be possible to ensure
a sustainable infrastructure, including transport and water supply,
which will be necessary to support any extensive house building,
is put in place?
2.26 Proposals for new homes must be informed
by the availability of existing infrastructure such as water supply
and treatment facilities. New infrastructure needs should be minimised.
Based on present growth scenarios, predictions of climate change
and draft water company business plans, modelling by the Agency
indicates it is likely that there will be a water supply deficit
over much of the South East of England by 2015. This modelling
work is being refined to influence Regional Spatial Strategies.
Substantially increasing housing growth will increase pressure
on existing water supply infrastructure and, in areas such as
the South East where the majority of water comes from aquifers,
is likely to jeopardise achieving the environmental objectives
set as a result of the transposition of the Water Framework Directive.
For this reason alone, there are significant advantages in ensuring
that all new development is constructed to much higher standards
of water efficiency and that financial and regulatory incentives
are used to encourage retrofitting existing development. Increasing
water efficiency will also reduce the negative environmental impacts
of new infrastructure, the tax burden on water charge-payers and
increase disposable income of households.
2.27 Given the long term projections for
increased housing numbers and the long lead in time for the construction
of new infrastructure, it is important that best use is made of
existing supplies through improved demand management.
2.28 The funding arrangements for new infrastructure
needed to serve major housebuilding is need of review. At present,
water companies do not pass the cost on to developersit
is reflected in their five year business plans and borne by local
charge-payers. If the major house-building is in the interests
of the whole nationas claimed in the Barker Reviewthen
some of the cost of providing the infrastructure should logically
be borne by the whole nation.
3. CONCLUSIONS
OR RECOMMENDATIONS
The Agency believes that any addition to the
quantity of the housing stock in England and Wales should also
be guided by improved quality. All new housing needs to have high
standards of environmental performance and make better use of
limited resources such as energy and water.
The construction process itself has
negative environmental implications, particularly for waste management,
pollution incidents and land take.
Buildings need to be located in the
right place. This means avoiding areas of unacceptable environmental
risk such as flood plains and locating homes in places where existing
infrastructure is already in place.
May 2004
24 SEERA, South East Plan Discussion Paper No.9: Natural
Environment and Resources, SEERA, March 2004. See: http://www.southeast-ra.gov.uk/southeastplan/publications/09-naturalresources.pdf Back
25
www.foresight.gov.uk Back
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