Archived press release

Government must allow local authorities to set renewable standards for new building

24 August 2007

The Sustainable Energy Partnership and leading green groups today urged Government to maintain its support for the Merton rule. The Merton Rule is the borough-wide local planning policy, which requires developers to use onsite renewables on major new developments where viable. Their call comes in direct response to the public lobbying campaign by the British Property Federation and Home Builders Federation to force the Government into a totally unnecessary and politically damaging u-turn.

The policy, first developed by the then Labour boroughs of Merton and Croydon was enthusiastically endorsed by housing Minister Yvette Cooper MP in a Commons Ministerial Statement on 8 June 2006 and is enshrined in current Government planning guidance.

Last year Yvette Cooper's department wrote to every local planning authority with instructions to include a Merton rule in their draft local plans. A DCLG press release promised that it would include this request "in the new planning policy guidance on climate change." To date, the GLA, three other English regions, and 20 Local Planning Authorities have fully adopted the policy with another 150 about to do so. The Merton Rule is a key plank of the Government's wider renewable and sustainable energy policy and one of its few renewable energy policy successes in recent years.

Partnership Organiser Ron Bailey said

'the current campaign by the British Property Federation and Home Builders Federation to overturn this modest yet proven and highly successful policy in the forthcoming Climate Change Policy Planning Statement is nothing short of scandalous bearing in mind the urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions. There is no evidence that the Merton rule has deterred development, that the technologies are untested, unavailable or unproven, or that developers find it hard to deliver onsite renewables. Quite the reverse."

Andrew Warren Chair of the Partnership said

"Given the climate change imperative, and the fact that the Government's preferred national zero carbon homes timetable will not deliver any onsite renewables until 2013 at the very earliest, we'd expect Ministers to be embracing the Merton rule as a highly successful policy, not falling for the current developer campaign of misrepresentation and skulduggery. The Government's Micro-generation strategy refers to Merton and Croydon councils very positively as `trailblazers'. Nothing has changed since those words were written to justify a policy u-turn."

Friends of the Earth's planning co-ordinator, Naomi Luhde-Thompson, said:

"The Government must not cave in to house-building industry pressure and scrap a policy that would significantly cut carbon dioxide emissions from new buildings. This would do little to inspire confidence in Gordon Brown's commitment to tackling climate change. Buildings are responsible for around 40 per cent of UK carbon dioxide emissions. The Government must show that it is serious about the urgent need to cut UK emissions, which have risen under Labour. This means supporting the `Merton rule', and ensuring that all new homes are carbon-zero by 2010."

Note

The Sustainable Energy Partnership represents all the major environmental and fuel poverty NGOs and relevant sustainable energy trade associations. In the short time available this press release has been specifically approved by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance, Greenpeace, Ground Source Heat Pump Association, London Energy Managers Group, Renewable Energy Association, Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA), Solar Trade Association, Tory Green Initiative

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust