Government confirms that local authorities can set energy standards beyond Part L

[Dreadnaught]

A PYC tweet today:

 

Quote

Great news! "Government confirms local authorities can set energy standards beyond Part L in NPPF" Looking forward to seeing who does it first. 

 

https://www.ukgbc.org/news/government-confirms-local-authorities-can-set-energy-standards-beyond-part-l-in-nppf/

 

My summary:

• The Government yesterday published its revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). 
• Government said as part of the consultation: "local authorities are not restricted in their ability to require energy efficiency standards above Building Regulations".
• This implies local authorities can can set energy standards beyond Part L now, but just didn't realise it.

I would love for a UK local authority to mandate something close to the Passive House standard.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Dreadnaught

[ProDave]

Why do I get the feeling, any authority that tries this will do so as a planning issue, not as a building control issue, and it will end up as a complete mess.

[Dreadnaught]

Good point @ProDave. Oh actually, this should be in the Building Regulations forum, not Planning Permission. Could a mod move it?

[newhome]

The way developers get around getting poorly built houses to pass the current tests I doubt it would make a huge difference. These look like balsa wood. 

 

 

[ProDave]

^^ I am impressed the upstairs plasterboard is largely intact, even though all traces of any frame it might have been attached to has long since gone.

[Dudda]

Some local authorities already have this in Ireland for a while already. Dun Laoghaire (an affluent area of south Dublin) brought in a passive house standard for all new builds. This was later modified to Passive house or Equivalent as not all buildings could meet the certified passive house standard due to site or other usage conditions.

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/new-buildings-in-dun-laoghaire-must-adopt-low-energy-standards-1.2103215

[PeterW]

5 hours ago, Dreadnaught said:

I would love for a UK local authority to mandate something close to the Passive House standard.

 

I’d hate it. Because it wouldn’t be enforced with anyone but the small/self builders as the big developers found a multitude of ways round it ... 

[Temp]

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

Why do I get the feeling, any authority that tries this will do so as a planning issue, not as a building control issue, and it will end up as a complete mess.

 

I don't think the law allows them to make it a building control issue. I think the only way they can do it is through the local plan.

[gravelld]

Interested - how would it end up a mess (I don't really understand the interaction between BC and P - I thought they were independent and you needed both to say "yes").

[Ian]

8 hours ago, Temp said:

 

I don't think the law allows them to make it a building control issue. I think the only way they can do it is through the local plan.

@temp is correct and this is already applied commonly to Planning Permissions on commercial buildings to make the use of renewables compulsory above and beyond the requirements of the Building Regs 

[ADLIan]

I see this a lot as a planning condition.

Typically Planners will require a 'scheme' to be 10% better than Regs based on CO₂ emissions and/or fabric energy efficiency and also may dictate it's got to be done by the use of renewables. Distinct lack of consistency even within one planning authority! Self builders and smaller developers have to jump through the hoops but, as ever, the large, national house builders appear to avoid this type of condition, I believe the reason(?) is 'it doesn't make the development economically viable'.

 

Ian

[Jeremy Harris]

In some respects it's little different to the old Code for Sustainable Homes energy related elements.  One site near us had a planning stipulation that it had to meet CFsH level 4 (IIRC), but frankly it's a joke, as the developers may have complied on paper, but that is the very estate where I walked around with my thermal imaging camera a year or so ago, pointing out how crap they were, with large areas of missing wall insulation, no insulation at all in the dormers, large areas of thermal bridging around the doors and windows (that I suspect were really air leakage), etc.  People living there are reporting energy bills that are more than double those estimated on their EPCs.

 

I can't really see how any planning stipulation to build to a better standard would be enforced, as we can't even enforce current building regs at all well.

[Temp]

Will they be expecting  private building control companies to check you have complied with a planning condition?