BREEAM, Code, Sustainable Buildings

From 31 July 2014, it will no longer be necessary to provide Code for Sustainable Homes or BREEAM reporting with the majority of applications.  

The Minister has now set out how current requirements for BREEAM/Code for Sustainable Homes will be removed from the planning process.  On 31 July 2014, Part B of the sustainable building policy under Planning Policy Wales (minimum sustainable building - standards code level 3, BREEAM para 4.12.4) will be withdrawn.  Decisions made after that date need not take it into account and the current requirement to accompany planning applications with pre-assessment C4SH or BREEAM reports will fall.  The same approach applies to S73 applications to vary planning conditions on existing planning permissions (e.g. requiring interim and post-construction reporting).  We are happy to take instructions on those.

The change is linked to devolving to WG of Building Regulations and the 2014 changes to the Regs. The planning change is procedural (rather than practical) and a welcome one.  It remains to be seen how the practicalities of Building Regs compliance might impact on schemes post-planning.  We will keep an eye on this and the flexibility of planning departments to tweak schemes to meet the 2014 BRegs.

Other parts of the WG sustainability planning policy (designing for climate change and strategic LDP sites) remain in force.  TAN 22 (Planning and Sustainable Building) will be withdrawn in parallel and TAN12 updated. (again as we understand it on 31 July 2014).

The Minister has re-stated his commitment that all new development in Wales be sustainable.  Most LDP's contain sustainable building/construction policies and the main thrust of national policy remains . LDP policies will still have to be considered in developing schemes.  The Minister has warned against developing local-level sustainable building policies in LDP's but that doesn't appear to rule out SPG being developed to flesh out local considerations for current policies - agains we hope if they do that wont push against the spirit of positive planning.  

Pete

PS.  The Future...  The Minister states:

"The next review of Part L, planned for 2016, will consider further steps in energy performance towards meeting the EU Directive target of nearly zero energy new buildings by 2019 for the public sector and 2021 for all new buildings. In the meantime I expect all new development to achieve the new 2014 Building Regulations and for developers to be taking these levels into account in the design of their development proposals (subject to the transitional arrangements set out in Building (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations 2014/110."