Keep green rules, urge campaigners

Leading green groups have urged government to maintain its support for planning policies which dictate that 10-20% of a building’s energy requirements are met by renewable sources.

The Merton Rule, first developed by the boroughs of Merton and Croydon, requires developers to use on-site renewables on major new developments.

The policy has come under attack from fierce lobbying by the British Property Federation (BPF). The BPF has called for the Merton Rule to be relaxed because it believes that investing in on-site renewable energy sources is not the best way to reduce emissions.

Liz Peace, BPF chief executive, said: “Redirecting the financial investment required to deliver these targets for on-site renewables to the buildings themselves and the services in them, such as boilers, would increase their energy efficiency. It would deliver better energy savings and also allow buildings to benefit from larger scale renewable energy generated much more efficiently. This will ultimately save significantly more CO2 than the blinkered approach encouraged by the Merton Rule.”

The Sustainable Energy Partnership, which includes trade bodies such as the Renewable Energy Association as well as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, has hit back at the BPF. Partnership organiser Ron Bailey said: “The current campaign by the BPF 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 on-site renewables. Quite the reverse.”

The policy was endorsed by housing minister Yvette Cooper in a ministerial statement on 8 June 2006 and is enshrined in government planning guidance. Last year, Yvette Cooper’s department wrote to every local planning authority with instructions to include a Merton Rule in their plans.

To date, the Greater London Authority, three other English regions, and 20 local planning authorities have fully adopted the policy with another 150 expected to do so.

The new planning statement is expected before the end of the year.