Comment

Representation ID: 10372

Received: 29/07/2022

Respondent: Liberal Democrat Party Bedford Borough Council

• With a growing climate catastrophe – that the Liberal Democrats have led action against – threatening the viability of humanity and life on earth, the need for environmentally sustainable housing to be delivered has never been more important. We welcome the measures outlined to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, we believe local government needs more powers to ensure developers build low carbon housing. For example, we welcome the new requirements for EV charging points to be provided in new homes, but the Government has not gone far enough. It would be very easy to also add requirements for all new homes to have solar panels, heat pumps and other sustainable features yet they have consistently failed on this basis . Viability assessments on developments are currently used to avoid delivering sustainable and affordable housing. These must be reformed or scrapped to ensure that sustainability in its widest sense is not subservient to maintaining land values.