Campaigns
Proposed redevelopment on Glossop Road fails to incorporate sustainability features
SCA has lodged an objection to the planning application to redevelop The Mount, Glossop Road, Sheffield (ref. 22/00981/FUL) on the grounds there are insufficient features for tackling climate change – either mitigating the change or adapting to its impacts.
We believe that this development could act as an exemplar retrofit of a heritage asset, and Sheffield City Council should insist on features that will help society to both combat and adapt to climate change.
The sustainability features that should be designed in to the redevelopment include:
- Insulation: ideally to Passivhaus standards
- Solar panels on roofs, ground source or air source heat pumps;
- Green walls to the car park;
- Rainwater harvesting, and if possible grey water recycling;
- Electric charging for cars and bikes;
- Heat baffles or external shutters to guard against excess future summer heat;
- External clothes drying areas.
- Adequate cycle parking.
SCA believes strict climate measures should be included because:
- Planning has an obligation to consider how to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts. The Planning System should therefore be trying to ensure that new buildings do not add to carbon emissions – they should be zero-carbon or even carbon negative.
- The UK Parliament has declared a Climate Emergency and legislated for the UK to reach net-zero carbon by 2050; Sheffield City Council has gone further and is aiming for Sheffield to reach net-zero carbon by 2030.
- The UK Government has signed the Paris Agreement, to keep global warming well below 2C and undertake rapid emissions reductions.
- The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has recommended that buildings need to be fully decarbonised, saying that ‘…the UK’s legally-binding climate change targets will not be met without the near-complete elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from UK buildings…’