Planning co-ordination

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I think I'm largely repeating points that have been made before this week. Anyhow. An interesting chat with a client at lunch today. He was positive about how both project teams and end users are becoming more and more enthusiastic and demanding about going green. There was a but, of course, and it's the profession that usually gets it - planners.

A new scheme he worked on looked very much at the scale and the design of the building to start with, which clearly can lead to the most benefits to start with. So they were able to design the scheme with less floorplate and less height. So significant carbon savings there. Yet all the planners would talk about when the scheme was submitted was the amount of renewables powering it.

This argument has often been flagged up in debates on the Merton Rule. It seems still very relevant as there appears no part of the planning process that really assesses carbon content. Perhaps the new codes will cover this but right now there's a big anomaly there.

Comments

[Andrew]

I agree - the merton rule seems like a very blunt instrument to me. Other forms of carbon saving should be considered.