Transport for London began its relocation from small, disjointed offices to larger ones in 2006, when it moved into the Palestra building in Southwark. The next move was to make the property more sustainable and live up to the Greater London Authority’s target of reducing CO2 emissions by 60% before 2025, compared to 1990 levels.
As part of its £5m retrofit, funded by TfL’s £25m Climate Change fund, TfL installed the UK’s largest in-house hydrogen fuel cell as part of the Palestra’s brand new Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP).
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The government’s draft National Policy Statement (NPS) on energy is a failure for not spelling where infrastructure should be built or when, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute.
The professional body that represents 22,000 planners in the UK  issued a highly critical response to the government’s consultation on the draft NPS, which  closed on Monday.
The draft proposals, were subject to a 15 week consultation, will determine how proposals to build new energy facilities are decided upon by the new Infrastructure Planning Commission.
Matt Thomson, acting director of policy & partnerships at …

The government’s consultation about its National Policy Statements on large energy schemes closes today, following responses from over 1,000 organisations and individuals.
The draft proposals, which have been subject to a 15 week consultation, will inform the way the Infrastructure Planning Commission makes decisions by setting national priorities on the national need for new energy schemes such as nuclear power stations, wind farms and other power stations.
Over 3,300 people attended 23 events in England and Wales to learn more about the draft NPSs.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, minister of state for …

Regions outside London and the south-east will lose out in the economic recovery unless the government adopts a national framework for transport policies, planners have warned.
Today, the Town and Country Planning Association and the Local Government Association published their 48-page report Connecting Local Economies – The Transport Implications. It said arguments in Whitehall could undermine attempts to co-ordinated planning policy for big infrastructure projects such as roads, ports and railways.
The report warned that the current system of National Policy Statements is not coherent.
There is no individual department overseeing the drafting …

What it is: Legislation for the Carbon Reduction Commitment – now called the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme – have been laid before Parliament. The Department for Energy and Climate Change is leading the way on CRC, which is due to come into effect in April.
When it came out: 22 January 2010
Why it is important: The Carbon Reduction Commitment is due to become law on 1 April 2010. Businesses that use at least 5,000 MWh of energy each year, measured on half-hourly meters, are due to be covered by the emissions …

The least energy efficient buildings are to be phased out under new government plans that came to light this week.
Last week, the government responded to the first annual report of its green adviser the Committee on Climate Change. It said that government would consult early in 2010 on a policy to introduce Display Energy Certificates into all commercial buildings.
This would extend the current policy, where all publicly owned buildings are required to have the certificates. It said it would use this information to phase out G rated buildings – the …

Local people should be able to push for better building and planning regulations to protect against terrorism and other disasters, the Conservatives have pledged.
Today, in its 30-page policy paper A Resilient Nation: National Security Green Paper, the Conservative Party said communities and businesses should be able to “insist on better building and planning regulations to help reduce the effects in built up areas of natural hazards and terrorist attacks”. This extends the party’s pledge over giving local people more powers to oppose developments in their area.
The party said that more …

The government wants to overhaul the Code for Sustainable Homes to make it easier for homeowners to understand how energy efficient their homes are.
Today, housing and planning minister launched a plan to make the code simpler. He said government would remove the bureaucracy of becoming rated under the system; would more closely align the code to the government’s target of making all new homes zero carbon by 2016; and take account of the difficulty of balancing sustainability with other pressures on housebuilders.
Healey said changing the system would help consumers understand …

The government should put more pressure on the companies it works with if it wants to cut its carbon emissions, a report on the government has advised.
On Wednesday, independent charity the Carbon Disclosure Project published a 44-page study “CDP Public Procurement Report for the UK Government”. It said government suppliers were not doing enough to understand their carbon dioxide emissions, and those that had set targets fell short of the government aims to cut carbon emissions 34% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
It also reported that suppliers in the property …