Climate change objection

Sent earlier today

Dear Planning Officer

In "Off the runway" an article in the Summer Red Pepper, the authors, K Jha & S Kaye, sayIt  that the Heathrow judgment means "most major infrastructure developments will now be benchmarked against the Paris Agreement". I attach an extract from the article.

So it is welcome that an earlier email of yours to me cites the climate emergency as one of the considerations Redbridge will be making a judgment upon when assessing the Tesco Goodmayes application.

I have copied a paper on EU building benchmarking, I stress that the benchmarks in the paper may not be the ones that Redbridge is required to use.

Instead, I am saying that the application does not have sufficient benchmarking to be clear the hurdle of a reasonable estimation of the impact the development would have on climate change. My argument is that if "most infrastructure developments will now be benchmarked against the Paris Agreement".it must follow that large residential developments must also be benchmarked against the Paris Agreement.

For example I cannot find the total CO2 figure that will be emitted by the construction of the development. Nor can I see estimates of the CO2 emitted by mechanical ventilation for the towers. Efforts are made to mitigate CO2 emissions by roof gardens for example, but I cannot find enough detail in the application to work out if they will off set the reported high CO2 emissions connected with concrete and steel high rise building.

The National Planning Policy Framework mentions Climate change, I would argue that as a consequence of the Heathrow judgement, Paris benchmarking have become implied terms withing the document.

I say this apparent absence (there is lot of documents on the Redbridge site, but I cannot find any any CO2 benchmarking) of Paris benchmarking against CO2 reduction targets breaches a material consideration and compels Redbridge to reject the application. 

I attach the EIA scoping report of February 2019, CO2 emissions are mentioned very briefly, and I am puzzled as to why it does not appear to have been updated in light of the Heathrow judgment.

I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt of my late objection on climate change grounds. 

Regards

Andy