Committee on Climate Change

Chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC), Lord John Krebs, has written to Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, setting out the Committee’s advice on the Draft National Planning Policy Statement.

The ASC first identified the importance of the land-use planning system for adaptation in their 2010 report. The Committee’s next report in 2011 reviewed how the land-use planning system is contributing to the UK’s adaptation in a sample of local authorities.

The Committee’s analysis to date suggests that planning policy in relation to adaptation has been successful in ensuring that new buildings include measures that will help reduce some of the key risks from climate change, for example raising floor levels to reduce damages from flooding. However, the Committee also found that many strategic decisions on the location of new development are not accounting for the long-term risks from a changing climate and so potentially increasing vulnerability to flooding in the future.

The letter identifies a number of provisions and policies in the draft framework that are sensible from an adaptation perspective, including:

• Adaptation being a strategic priority for local development plans.  
• The requirement on local planning authorities to demonstrate successful cooperation, particularly on issues that cross administrative boundaries and relate to strategic priorities (i.e. including adaptation). 
• That new development should be planned to avoid increasing vulnerability to impacts arising from climate change and when development is brought forward in vulnerable areas that care should be taken to ensure that risks can be managed through suitable adaptation measures, including green infrastructure.
• The retention of a sequential, risk-based approach that aims to steer development to areas with the lowest probability of flooding and that takes account of the impacts of climate change.

In his letter, Lord Krebs said:
“The planning system sets out sensible principles on adaptation but these principles are not always being applied robustly or consistently. The Government should consider how the planning system can better enable local decision makers to weigh up the long-term costs of climate change impacts against the shorter-term social and economic benefits from development.”

The Committee’s 3rd annual progress report will explore in more detail how local authorities are accounting for the implications of climate change on flood risk when making long-term, strategic decisions on the location of new development. This will be published in July 2012 and will provide further evidence which will be of use to the Government as it continues to reform the planning system.  View the full work programme here.

The ASC’s next report ‘How well is Scotland preparing for climate change’ is due to be published on 24th November 2011.