Sustainable Design of New Development

  Contains Options

Temperatures in the UK exceeded 40oC for the first time in recorded history in July 2022. Climate scientists have stated that it is near certain that this record temperature is climate change and sets a worrying precedent for future extreme weather events.  This demonstrates the crucial need to both mitigate any further increases in climate change and adapt to the inevitable effects of what is already in motion. 

The Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and set out actions to address this in the Green City Action Plan. This initially addressed emissions from council buildings and operations. Sustainable design reduces the emissions from new development and helps meet the UK target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This policy covers overarching sustainability and will set out how the design of developments should take account of our changing climate, for example extreme weather events such as heat waves and flash flooding. Detailed energy and water requirements are set out in policies EN1, DE7, EN8 and EN10.