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Sustainability 'must be at heart of planning system'
07/07/10
Edited by Bob Witham.The government should view the planning system as a "vital tool" in its fight against climate change, according to an alliance of professional and environmental bodies.
According to the Planning and Climate Change Coalition, ministers should be using the coalition's reform of the way developments are authorised to ensure it "makes a full contribution" to issues like mitigating flood risk, reducing power consumption and protecting future quality of life.
The group, which is led by the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) and Friends of the Earth, laid out its argument in a letter to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
It urged Whitehall to provide greater access to advice and coordination to areas that want to reduce their vulnerability to climate change, rather than imposing "top-down" rules on sustainability.
TCPA chief executive Kate Henderson said: "The coalition government's changes to national policy provide an opportunity to put social justice and sustainable development at the heart of the system."
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have already committed themselves to "radically reforming" the planning process.
