Memorandum submitted by Whitefield Conservation
Action Group
A. THE CODE
FOR SUSTAINABLE
BUILDINGS
Can a voluntary code possibly deliver the degree
of change needed in the building industry to achieve well-designed,
energy efficient sustainable buildings, which have minimal impact
on the local environment?
A1 NO! Whilst this plan may be laudable!
Where are the specifications for the changes required to cut down
on CO2 emissions that explain a total and complete turn-around
that will do away with the problem! It is no good starting
from the middle . . . eg the building stage, it will have to be
taken back to the digging out of the clay from the ground that
makes the bricks, the materials that compose the thermal blocks,
the lime and cement it takes to bond these buildings together,
the baking of these things that give us the solid materials that
then are available for new build. How much CO2 in these respects
will have already caused the damage BEFORE one new house is built
. . . unfortunately it costs more, detrimentally in environmental
and planetary terms and consideration.
A2 Whilst trees are a renewable option,
for every tree cut down, 20 of the same will have to be planted
for our future, trees are only one of the ways to combat the CO2,
without their replenishment to contribute to our oxygen supply,
we will all die of suffocation and be burnt to a crisp to boot,
(that in-effect will solve the housing problem that we are discussing
to-day!)
A3 As the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
said:
"Building better, greener buildings is
a key element of our £38 billion Sustainable Communities
Plan. This is the best opportunity we have had for generations
to change the way we build. By doing things differently we will
benefit both people and the planet"
A4 Rubbish, we could and should have been
doing this donkey's years ago, it has nothing to do with the Sustainable
Communities Plan, it cannot be said that we have not been warned
for years about Global Warming and CO2 Gas Emissions . . . (See
Rio Earth Summit 1990) now all of a sudden the Government is jumping
up and down and starts to throw up their hands in despair . .
. ?
". . . It is time to apply the highest
environmental standards to the new and existing building stock
if we are to tackle climate change and achieve high quality design
for communities, where people will want to live now and in the
future."
A5 We find it unbelievable that the goalposts
have been changed so many times that not even Government knows
what it is doing, that the Government started out with the aims
of:
— "Sustainable Communities"
— "Low Demand and Deprivation
Levels"
— "Empty and Abandoned Housing"
— "Housing Market Collapse"
— "Over-Supply in the North and
Under-Supply in the South"
Now included in the above items is "High
Quality Design" and "Highest Environmental Standards"
as well as "Climatic Change" are being thrown into the
arena!
A6 (Will someone please make their mind
up what you are going . . . and do not say you want to address
all of them, as this or any Government could not accomplish even
half of the proposals as they are too big as it is to accomplish
all in a short time!)
A7 The Secretary of State for the Department
for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt said: "The aim to
build better buildings, and tackle the key environmental issues
of greenhouse emissions and waste,"
A8 We would like to know how buildings could
be built any better than the Victorian build that we have now
within environmental terms and how the issues of greenhouse emissions
can be bypassed . . .? ". . . is clearly one which Government
and Industry must work together on. We know that to establish
and develop a successful Code we will need the technical expertise
of the industry."
A9 This is something that "Scientists"
will have to work on separately, not the Government, Pathfinders
or the Local Authorities who have no knowledge of what they are
doing and, especially the Building Industry! This is a specialised
subject that cannot be handed out to Industry either as they are
too involved to have an independent view, I believe they call
it "A Conflict of Interest!"
2. Is the Government doing enough to promote
the Code, with the industry and the general public, ahead of its
imminent introduction early in 2006?
2A NO! For the simple reason, no one
knows what the "Code" actually is? The "Code"
is not publicised as an "Absolute Report" that we the
public can read in its "Absolute Original State!" Where
is the report or document that tells the Communities where, what,
when and how? Many may have heard of it, but most of us have not
seen it!
3. Should the Government be introducing fiscal
measures to reward higher building quality and greater environmental
performance?
2A NO! "Good Design and Environmental
Performance" should make its own reward! Housing should not
have to be built on a fiscal reward but on a good design and good
quality workmanship, anything less should not be entertained!
Government should be able to enforce the highest quality designs
without pandering to the Architects or Builder's whim with money!
B: SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES:
HOMES FOR
ALL
4. Does the ODPM Five Year Plan, Sustainable
Communities: Homes for All demonstrate a greater recognition of,
and greater commitment to tackling, the impact of increased house
building on the environment or does it merely pay lip service
to it?
4a Lip Service . . . The whole situation
is hijacked by the House Building Federation who are in control,
they like all the others, neither know or care anything about
the environment only about how much money they can put into their
pockets fast enough and go on to the next job! For instance;
5: To what extent does the Five Year Plan
address the environmental implications of the geographical distribution
of demolition versus new build?
5a It doesn't! It is a question of "Concreting
the South and Bulldozing the North!" "What you call
Geographically" in this respect is nonsense . . . and needs
to be addressed! Whole communities from the north are distorted
by the social and economic patterns from those communities in
the South. . . Therefore it is a perpetuation of the north/south
divide
5b The Government is not evening up the
distribution of clearance throughout the country, only in the
north, the fact that the Pathfinders are coming up with a clearance
of dwellings already occupied that CPOs are stacking up alarmingly,
if these properties were supposed to be empty (Voids) then there
would be NO CPOs at all!
5c Government has no idea what it is doing,
Pathfinders and LA's do . . . the fact that there is no Collapse
of the Housing Market, No abandoned homes, and no empty properties,
except those that the LA's, RSL's Landlords and speculators has
already boarded up to make it look as though the IMD exists just
so they can apply their own "off the shelf jobs," which
do not fit the original HMRI!
C: LPS2020.
6. The Government has consulted on the new
construction standard for dwellings (LPS2020). On the basis of
that consultation is it possible to determine whether the new
standard will be a positive force for change and add value to
the construction process?
6a Where and with whom? It seems to us that
consultation again has been done, but someone forgot to tell us!
We cannot comment on something that we have not been made privy
to nor consulted on! But the House Building Federation is
sacrificing quality for quantity to fill their own pockets; this
can be seen in the investigative newspapers/magazines.
6b Exclusive: Deputy PM says design for
regeneration lacks imagination; promises rethink with Rogers'
help By Robert Booth and Charlie Gates
John Prescott has admitted the government is
failing to ensure adequate design quality in its urban regeneration
plans.
Speaking exclusively to BD in response to this
week's sharply critical Urban Task Force report, Prescott said
he "very much agrees" with Rogers, who castigated the
government for spending £2 billion of taxpayers' money on
urban regeneration schemes that, in the main, are "poorly
designed" and "of very low quality".
The report hit at the heart of Prescott's Sustainable
Communities Plan, which focuses on development in four growth
areas in the southeast.
Prescott admitted design was "a major area
for improvement" and vented frustration at builders that
do not employ architects.
"I do think we haven't done enough on the
design," the deputy prime minister said. "There's not
enough imagination. I have said to Rogers, `do the report and
after that we have to see what we can do'. That's a major area
for improvement. Design is equally as important as the quality
of construction."
In a rebuke to house-builders, whom he has entrusted
with building 200,000 homes across the Southeast, he was critical
of design standards in the £60,000 house competition, saying
the few homes where designers were properly involved stood out.
Prescott's remarks and offer to work again with
Rogers, suggest the government is ready to seriously consider
the task force's recommendations. They include design contests
for regeneration projects, judging panels dominated by design
professionals, and design advisers at board or cabinet level in
agencies, local government and Whitehall.
Rogers also attacked the design record of government
regeneration agency English Partnerships as "appalling"
and scorned its use of design codes to plan new communities, in
particular at Milton Keynes.
But Rogers' more radical proposals have already
been snubbed. He called for plans to build 100,000 homes east
of London to be "frozen" until transport infrastructure
was installed, warning that unless sites were mothballed now,
low-density development would overwhelm the area before rail links
were installed, allowing high-density.
Prescott responded with incredulity, saying:
"you can't stop a housing programme like this", and
claimed the government was giving "importance to the infrastructure".
The call for a freeze was not endorsed by the
task force, but one member, National Trust director of policy
Tony Burton, said its recommendations added up to a call for the
government to retreat from its focus on new growth zones and instead
concentrate on developing existing cities.
London School of Economics professor of social
policy Anne Power said the Communities Plan was "clumsy,
insensitive, rushed, quantity-driven and wasteful". She added
that the focus on new growth areas risked diverting attention
from urban renewal and that Britain was in a "knife-edge"
situation, with ethnic minority groups growing increasingly frustrated
at their isolation.
The task force warned that a plethora of overlapping
regeneration bodies had harmed the effectiveness of regeneration.
In what was effectively a call for a cull of quangos, Rogers called
for the creation of a panel of no more than 10 people to oversee
the regeneration of east London.
Communities minister David Miliband rejected
this, saying "one institution in Stalinist control is likely
to get complex projects wrong". He instead revealed plans
for a new "strategic framework" for the region.
The Centre for Cities think- tank said the task force
report was too skewed towards design. "Design issues are
important, but economic ones must come first" said director
Dermot Finch. "Increased output, employment and investment
have been the key to the turnaround of major cities."
Highlights of task force's demands? Raise the
target for development of Brownfield land from 60% to 75% of all
developments.
— Raise minimum housing density from
20 to 40 dwellings per hectare.
— Every public body to regularly report
and be assessed on design.
— Design contests for all publicly
funded regeneration projects.
— Appoint architect adviser to the
Olympics.
— Make all housing estates mixed tenure
by 2012.
— Reduce VAT on repair and renovation.
— Empower city governments to raise
taxes.
— Create a single delivery body per
regeneration area.
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/class=
D: INFRASTRUCTURE
7: Is the Government doing enough to secure
sufficient funds for the timely provision of infrastructure, such
as transport links, schools and hospitals in the four Growth Areas?
7a Nowhere near, this Government is not
looking at hospitals. In Burnley, they are shutting down the Heart
Unit in an area that the LA and Government say is one of the worst
areas for "alleged" heart disease??? Transport is rubbish
and we don't consider knocking down approx six to seven schools
to new build three any help for our kids! Especially when the
LA says that Whitefield is educationally poor?
8: Are the water companies doing enough to
secure the supply of water resources to the four Growth Areas?
And is concern about security of water supply, in the South East
of England in particular, a valid one or simply a knee jerk reaction
to a few hot, dry summers?
8a There is not enough provision for clean
drinking water, this is a deadly serious subject, and is 100%
perilous . . . every single household should be metered and every
household will have to be educated that the supply is not infinite!
9: Is there sufficient effort being made
by the Government, the Environment Agency and the water companies
to educate people about water efficiency?
9a NO! As the above, water should be
metered to all households, if you want to give rewards then this
is the one to do it with, rewards for the re-use of washing water,
grey water for the flushing of toilets etc, re-education and fines
for those who misuse the clean drinking water for alternative
purposes!
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Expert calls for communities plan overhaul "Planning
Resource—25 November 2005"
The community's plan could need a radical overhaul
following massive changes to the housing market that occurred
after the policy was formed.
Speaking to housing professionals at the Northern
Way conference in York, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's
director of sustainable communities Andrew Wells warned that the
housing market has changed so considerably since the communities
plan was released the department's flagship policy could be due
for a major overhaul.
Predictions of the amount of homes required
in the North East has fallen considerably since the forecasts
that underpin the communities plan were made in 1999, he said.
By contrast, the housing market in the North West had "turned
around" and the predictions for household demand in London
had shot up to beyond "what anyone could provide".
Unaffordability, barely a problem in the north
in 1999, had become a serious concern in a clitch of northern
hotspots, such as North Yorkshire, by 2004, Wells said.
"Should we think again about the interventions,
and what we are doing in the north?" he said. "I think
we should be building more dwellings in the north in hotspot areas.
"I think we need to look at how we can
replace dwellings in the large conurbations rather than building
households around them—which will suck the life out of these
places and create a problem which is largely left to the public
sector to deal with."
Although unaffordability, where the average
home cost ten or more times average earnings, was a largely greater
south-eastern affliction when the communities plan was being drawn
up by officials; interim figures produced after the policy was
launched showed it to affect much of the south west, and parts
of the north and midlands, by 2004.
"It wasn't anything like that at the time
of the Sustainable Communities Plan," Wells said of the south
west." In areas of the north there are now areas of high
unaffordability, which wasn't the case at the time of the Sustainable
Communities Plan," he added.
In a warning that the government's housing plans
face being undermined by changes in England's economic geography,
Wells asked: "Are we working on assumptions which will prove
unfounded?"
We agree whole-heartedly with the above statements
and especially those quotes in the Additional Comments.
The Pathfinders will have to STOP what they
are doing and totally reassess the situation, which has changed
drastically over the last few years, the communities are not with
the Government's draconian ways of taking peoples homes away from
them against their will!
November 2005
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