Council goes against recommendation from their Sustainability Officer

We were surprised to read that Rydon’s application to vary their planning conditions were approved, despite the objection from Sutton Council’s Sustainability Officer.

• Read the reasons why we objected to these changes
• View planning application DM2020/01397, associated documents and decision notice

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Sustainability Officer’s response

Application to vary condition 21 (Approved Plans) and delete condition 13 (Code for Sustainable Homes) to allow for changes to materials, fenestration and PV panels of planning permission Ref: C2012/66351

I object to the proposed deletion of Condition 13 attached to permission C2012/66351 which requires each of the dwellings to achieve Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) for the following reasons:

– while the CSH was withdrawn by the Government in April 2015, it is clear from the GOV.UK website that the Code it may still be used for ‘legacy cases’ such as the approved development at former 1 Nightingale Close;

– the proposal for each of the dwellings to only achieve compliance with Part L1A of the 2010 Building Regulations with respect to minimum energy efficiency standards and the target emission rate (TER) is unacceptable. If built to this standard, the dwellings would fall well short of the minimum energy efficiency requirements of the current Building Regulations 2013 and even further short of the the minimum requirements of CSH Level 4. A dwelling built to Part L1A can potentially emit 33% more CO2 than a dwelling built to Code Level 4

– Policy 31 of the current Local Plan requires all major residential developments within the borough to achieve ‘zero carbon’ standards with at least a 35% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to Part L1A 2013 on site. Within the context of the climate emergency, deleting condition (13) and therefore allowing dwellings to be built which would fail to meet the minimum requirements of the current Building Regulations cannot be justified.