Agenda item

The Committee considered a late, separately circulated, report of the Executive Director, Environment, which provided information on the consultation responses received for the Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Optioneering Planning Advice Note. It set out the consultation engagement undertaken, the type of responses received and the subsequent changes that were made to the Planning Advice Note in response to the received comments and feedback.

An Officer stated that a threshold had been introduced for the optioneering requirement for all major applications and for other applications that were proposing to demolish more that 50% of the existing building. Applicants would be asked to use the optioneering exercise to demonstrate how the scheme evolved to become the planning application scheme. Applicants would not be challenged on the optioneering calculations when assessing the planning application scheme as the calculations were only used to compare the options with each other. The optioneering results were based on less detail than the planning application scheme so it would not necessarily be possible to compare the optioneering results with the planning application scheme. Third party verification had been introduced with optioneering results required to be independently assessed to ensure high quality and robust schemes developed.

An Officer stated that work had taken place on the Planning Advice Note following consultation and changes had been made to the structure and layout. Officers had worked to improve the flow and navigation of the Planning Advice Note and align it more with the design of other City of London policy documents recently published. An Officer stated that the planning advice note was based on the GLA Guidance but was at a less detailed level, consistent with the conception stage of the exercise which took place at the pre-application stage.

An Officer stated that the options chosen depended on the opportunities and constraints of the site. She stated that the baseline option had been amended to ‘minor refurbishment’ rather than the ‘do nothing option’ because it was important, as a minimum, to extend a building’s lifetime.

An Officer stated that collecting data would have limited purpose beyond comparing the results of the options with each other. Post completion data would be important in comparing schemes and creating standards in the long term. Carbon reduction opportunities were being considered in relation to every scheme.

A number of Members stated that they were impressed with the quality of the documents and the responses to questions.

In response to a Member’s question about the average lifecycle of a building in the City, an Officer stated that this was not monitored.

A Member asked if the options would contain sufficient information for Members to compare them at Committee meetings. An Officer stated that two dashboards had been developed. One of the dashboards was about the planning application scheme and the other was about options. Both dashboards would form part of the Committee reports members would receive. The information would also include assumptions made with the options and evaluation of each option against different environmental issues and the wider planning balance of the scheme. An Officer stated that as the optioneering took place at the pre-application stage there would be little detail e.g., in relation to materials, as these decisions were taken relatively late in the process. The information in the optioneering was based on nominal figures and all the information was the same across all the options.

In response to a Member’s question about third party verification, an Officer stated that the Whole Lifecycle Carbon Guidance required third party verification.

In response to a Member’s question, an Officer stated that the change of use between different schemes could not be introduced through the Planning Advice Note as the Local Plan, Adopted Local Plan and the forthcoming City Plan would take precedence. It could be considered as part of the retrofit first approach being explored through the Local Plan Sub-Committee.

The Chairman stated that this substantial piece of work took sustainability aims and ambitions and put them at the heart of the built environment policy. This work would put the City of London Corporation in a leading position in setting the bar for stainability criteria. The Chairman requested that the name of the document be simplified.

RESOLVED, That the Committee

agree the adoption of the Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Optioneering Planning Advice Note (Appendix 2 – WLC PAN Pre-Design Version).