Planning for Climate Change Adaptation Climate Change Impacts and Planning Responses Gill Fenna, Quantum Strategy

& Technology Work on adaptation has lagged behind mitigation but its very important to plan how we will adapt to the changes were expecting, regardless of what we do about mitigating our emissions. A lot of work has been done in the UK to assess the impacts on our economy, towns and countryside. As planners, your role involves decisions on developments that are going to be around for a very long time. If we currently build our buildings or design our towns to deal with our historical climate well end up with problems in the future. The Climate Change Adaptation Sub-Committee recently assessed our progress and identified critical areas for early action, taking into account the budget cuts, and identified a strategic approach to land use planning as a top priority. (How Well Prepared is the UK for Climate Change? Sept 2010.
http://www.theccc.org.uk/reports/adaptation)

What changes might we have in the UK, and in the NW in particular? Climate refers to long term changes over 30 years, weathers what you see out of the window. You need to be able to deal with long term changes, so we might expect it to be warmer, but that does not mean there will never be snow again. In the NW were expecting Warmer drier summers Increased rainfall and flooding High winds and storms More variability, more changes from one to another. UK climate impacts programme (www.ukcip.org.uk) have been working on what changes are expected over this century. The latest set of projection were produced in 2009 and look forward to the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. Theyve produced a range of projection based on different emissions scenarios (i.e. how well we can reduce emissions globally) At the moment its looking like were heading towards the higher end of the emissions scenarios. The data is provided in detailed form on the UKCIP database, and can be shown for each local area. However, the data sets are quite difficult to use. Its probably more important to understand the trends and probability linked to those, and plan to deal with the extremes. What might we expect? Its fairly wet in NW we are used to dealing with rain, but were already starting to get more intense rainfall, which has an effect on the capacity of our drainage systems, the structural integrity of buildings and infrastructure (e.g. the bottom picture is a reservoir in danger of collapse in recent floods), how emergency services cope, how

we try to keep water out of our houses, especially on areas of current flood risk, and how we deal with the disruption and damage caused. Warmer wetter winters are likely to exacerbate problems with existing housing stock, such as damp and mould with knock on impacts on the health of residents, more water logging of land, with impacts for agriculture and the construction industry. Sea level rise and increased storm surges will affect our coastline, with impacts on biodiversity and coastal amenity, but this will also have an economic impact with towns affected and the large areas of heavy industry on our coastline. The impacts of high winds and storms are more difficult to design out, but if there are areas where were expecting to see significant damage, we may need to look at places affected by hurricanes to see what we can learn from their building design. We also need to consider things like tree maintenance we dont want to get rid of urban trees because of their massive benefit for urban cooling, but we need to make sure they are resilient to storms. In the North East they are looking at designing more storm resilient buildings, as they expect greater impacts from winds. At the other end of scale, hotter drier summers means that more people will be outside more of the time, so we need to design our spaces to provide for that nice places to sit, shady spaces etc. We need to think about how to keep our buildings cool. In the Sustainable Buildings training session (www.climatechangenorthwest.co.uk/sustainable-design-and-lowcarbon-buildings-manchester.html ) we covered natural ventilation and cooling of buildings, and we already see that modern commercial buildings need very little heating but increasing amounts of cooling. Adding an airconditioning system may help to cool the building, but significantly increases energy demand and hence emissions. At a training day in Rossendale, we thought buildings cooling may not be such an issue in that location but on an October day the room we were in was too hot, and impossible to ventilate, and that was in a new commercial development. We also need to think about our water supply and how we deal with increased intense rainfall combined with periods of drought, making sure we can capture and store rainwater and minimise our use of water. Heatwaves can have major health impacts, particularly for vulnerable people, and exacerbated by poorer air quality. The national Heatwave Plan is being rolled out across the health and caring professions to deal with the impacts, but we need to design them out as much as possible. (www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPoli cyAndGuidance/DH_114430) Were seeing more wild fires/moorland fires as a result of drought, even in the last few weeks, with an impact on biodiversity, amenity and air quality, as well as the emergency services having to deal with them.

Ground conditions are affected by changes in soil moisture content, and were likely to see impacts on structural integrity of our buildings and infrastructure. In areas with soil cracking, you may need to change design of foundations to accommodate this. Finally, were expecting quite a significant impact on biodiversity, with changes in the types of ecology supported in different areas, and planners have a role in helping to manage the transition and maintain or improve the conditions to support biodiversity through development of green infrastructure plans and managing biodiversity in your areas. Is Do Nothing an Option? Putting in place measures to deal with climate change has a cost associated with it, so could we avoid this and deal with it afterwards mop up after the flood or provide health care for those affected by heatwaves? I personally dont think that do nothing is an option, as the costs of dealing with it are so significant in economic terms but also in social terms and we should try to design out problems we know about in advance. Weve already seen how the most vulnerable are the worst hit by extreme weather, as in Hurricane Katrina or flooding in south-east Asia, but this is also true in the UK. A study done for the Scottish and N Ireland Forum for Environmental Research looked at climate change impacts and who is most affected by it. (Differential Impacts of Climate Change in the UK, www.sniffer.org.uk/Webcontrol/Secure/ClientSpecific/ResourceManageme nt/UploadedFiles/UKCC22%20FinalReport_web.pdf ) This found that deprivation increased vulnerability to climate change but also those most vulnerable were worst affected by climate change. Categories of high-risk communities were defined as: a) People living in places of risk b) Disempowered; people who are unable or unwilling to understand or respond to advice such as migrant or traveller communities or student populations - especially common in city centre areas. (e.g. Following the flood last year in Bootle, Sefton Council has identified that they need specific plans to communicate with migrant communities.) c) Socially deprived people, who are most likely to live in at-risk areas, most susceptible through combinations of poor housing and existing poor health, also less able to retreat, reliant on public transport (which may fail in time of a flood), and unable to buy their way out of risk (by moving house). It also found that people in more socially deprived communities were less able to recover, e.g. no insurance, loss of a temporary job or unable to care for people with health problems, disruption to schooling etc. An event like a flood compounds existing problems they may have. As planners, you have a role in both in bringing in new developments and supporting economic development but also in making your area a good
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place to live and work, which includes making sure the area is well adapted. This argument goes down well with members its useful to compare the risks in your area with risks in areas where problems have already happened in Cumbria or Hull. Lancaster Environment Centre has done a very useful study of the aftermath of the Hull 2007 floods, called After the Rain (www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/cswm/Hull%20Floods%20Project/HFP_%20outputs. php). This followed people hit by the floods for about 2 years afterwards and demonstrated some of the long term problems faced. For example, 18 months afterwards around 350 people were not back in their homes, most people reported stress and health problems built up from the cumulative impacts of having to deal with lots of problems and lack of knowledge of who could help and who to trust. There was also a real strain on the council services and loss of trust in them. Flooding also has a high economic impact - the 2007 floods nationally cost us 4bn in out of pocket expenses, with the vast majority of that for householders and commercial properties. 37% of that was not covered by insurance or grants. Even the insured bit has an impact on everyone elses insurance costs. Councils themselves have to find money to deal with severe weather - Gloucester County Council faced costs of 50m after 2007 floods, only some of which could be recovered from national government. The recent floods in Cumbria are estimated to have cost 206m with long term impacts on businesses affected by closure, inability to meet contractual obligations, and agricultural land unable to be used. The last significant heatwave was in 2003, when there were large numbers of heatwave-related deaths 15,000 reported in France and 2,000 in the UK. There were significant losses for agriculture, and problems with air pollution, the quality of drinking water, damage to transport networks, large areas of forest fires etc. In Germany they had to close 2 nuclear power stations due to lack of cooling water. What can we do about it? There is a standard process of assessing the risks and who or what is vulnerable to those risks to determine what to do about it. You need to understand the specific risks to your area, your local economy and your households. For example flood risk mapping in Rossendale, showed a very small total area at risk, but those areas were in the valley bottom where housing and industry are based. You then look at what you can do to reduce vulnerability, which includes looking at how you provide council services, and how you can help businesses and households to help themselves. Finally, make sure you can deal with emergency. Most of this involves other parts of the council and the emergency services, but there is a role for planning, for example in making sure developments have safe emergency access and evacuation routes. Its useful to think of adaptation planning in two ways:
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a) Capacity policies, information and training to embed adaptation e.g. into planning policies b) Delivery actions building flood defences, improving natural cooling, using new types of road surface. Adaptation principles for buildings: Buildings and the landscape have to be able to deal with future climate, so we need to think about responses that can be flexible as well as hard infrastructure solutions. If we think about Adaptation as an integral part of planning our environment, its an opportunity to build better places to live in a well adapted environment is a nicer place to live, has more green space, has buildings that work well for the occupants. As always, designing in changes at the earliest possible stage is cheaper than retrofitting. Policy Much of the policy background is already there; we already have PPS 1, PPS 25 and Flood and Water Management Act, and elements of adaptation are incorporated in the new building regulations. Fore example, Part L 2010 has requirements on minimising solar gain and using natural ventilation to deal with overheating. Part G includes water efficiency. Part H includes requirements to make sure drainage systems can deal with water and storm water. Part C relating to resistance to contaminants and moisture, theres a start to make sure buildings can keep out moisture. Its not perfect, but its there as a basic minimum standard. Also we have the Code for Sustainable Homes and BREEAM, and particularly for developments achieving the higher levels of these standards, you can see whether adaptation measures are included. Most of the evidence for your policies is in place: UKCIP impacts evidence is there, and SFRAs should identify the flood risk areas. You may have an LCLIP (Local Climate Impacts Profile) for impacts in your local area. If youve been doing NI 188 process (now gone) some of that information should be there for your local area, you probably wont need to gather additional information. You may also have done work on heat mapping, green infrastructure policy, an air quality management plan, surface waster management plan, all of which can be used part of your evidence base. The Planning and Climate Change Coalition has produced guidance on policies for LPAs. (Planning for climate change guidance and model policies for local authorities, Nov 2010, www.rtpi.org.uk/download/10400/pccc_guidance_web.pdf ) Low Carbon Policy 4 gives guidance on adaptation, and crucially refers to adaptation options for existing developments, green infrastructure and paying attention to vulnerable groups. Design Principles

Again, there is plenty of guidance on designing for adaptation, e.g. the TCPA CC Adaptation by Design, there is a NW version, Hertfordshire have a very good guide, and there are good ones for the South and East of England. I would not suggest you develop new guidance of your own, but use whats out there. References: www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/climate-change-adaptation-by-design.html www.ccinw.com/uploads/documents/sustainable_construction/key_docum ents/final_ccabe_main_report_march_2010pdf.pdf www.london.gov.uk/trccg/docs/guide-sustainable-communities.pdf www.hertslink.org/buildingfutures/content/migrated/obdocs/pdfs/adaptati on.pdf Main changes to consider For higher temperatures youll need to address; heat island effect in town centres, need for shade and cooling (without using additional electricity), and whether your buildings can deal with the temperatures. Can the building cool down overnight? Reduced summer rainfall needs measures for water capture and conservation, potential drying out of the ground causing subsidence in buildings, prolonged periods without rain can lead to blocked drains when a sudden downpour occurs. Increased rainfall leads to water ingress into the buildings, will there be an increase in damp and mould? Waterlogged ground has an impact on agriculture and sports facilities, as well as on the construction industry. Finally, as sea temperatures rise and levels rise, well see increased surge rate, so flood defences need to take account of this. Although a lot of the basic principles are not new, we need to make sure that the thresholds or standards were working to will be fit for the future. The TCPA Guidance puts adaptation strategies into 3 categories: City/Town/District level reflected in Core Strategy, Flood Strategy, Green Infrastructure Strategy Neighbourhood level reflected in Neighbourhood Planning, Area Action Plans, Large Developments Building level reflected in Planning Conditions, Design Guidance/Policy, Building Regulations

Guidance demonstrates how these link together, for different climate impacts. So for example heat strategies include building level cooling and insulation, increasing evaporative cooling through green infrastructure across the whole district, use of urban water to cool neighbourhoods and new technologies such as cool pavements. What does it mean for you?
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If youre in policy, make sure you have hooks for adaptation for your policies to be able to require developments to be well adapted, and that you can provide sufficient guidance for developers to understand what they need to do. The Planning team needs to take a wider remit than new developments and be involved in area wide planning for flood, green infrastructure etc Your land allocations should allow space for sustainable drainage and for the use of green and blue infrastructure and air flow corridors, particularly in urban areas. DC needs to make sure the developments put forward are adapted for the future climate. BC needs to make sure the measures are implemented when it comes to building a development. I keep saying its not new; weve been designing shaded cities for a while, weve built drainage systems since the Roman days, we currently have town centre water and urban parks, we have flood defences. Adaptation is about how might it change over time, and how we think about the whole picture not just each individual development or area. We may also need to learn from other areas, how to use natural ventilation, like the old wind towers in Dubai, how we deal with storm surges, like monsoon drains in Singapore, more shaded areas round housing, not the flat faade were used to, using verandas or balconies, providing shade in our car parks, as they do in Italy1. Questions/Comments 1. One of the features of the world we operate in that developers want to use same products, they know what they want to build and how, and are used to working in certain way. What youre describing is different. How do you see the role of planning systems in terms of being specific on building design, and what is the development industry doing? A: Your role is in helping developers to understand the need for it. You need to understand why youre asking for it and what you want. Your role in policy is to make sure you have the policies in place to be able to refer back to, and you understand the evidence behind it (e.g. UK CIP) House-builders have had to change how they build over the last few years to meet the new building regulations and over the next 5 8 years will be moving to zero carbon. Reducing overheating is required already,
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The photo used shows the Recetto 2.8MW solar PV installation designed to provide shade for an 1100 cars, thus reducing fuel use for air conditioning, as well as supplying 1100 homes with electricity. www.zouk.com/en/news-archivedetails/items/zSOL_connects_28_MW_solar_PV_project_to_the_grid.html?year=2 010 7

especially on office buildings, and its at the forefront of the designer and architects minds. So climate change is already a consideration, especially for the larger construction groups. Flood risk is more of planner job than overheating and building design. 2. Looking at other countries we do need to do this as part of the process. A: Start by understanding what impacts are in your area, and relate that to other parts of the UK or similar areas abroad. Its useful to explain it to others in those terms and helps to understand what changes might look like. So for example, Manchester might become like the Loire. You need to think about what S Lakes might be like and build up the conversation around that. John Handley in relation to Cumbria, one thing we have not talked about is the question of climate change and visitor economy. Certainly in areas like the Pennine Uplands and Cumbria, fire risk is increasing very significantly. We dont want a foot and mouth situation where we exclude people from these areas, as its critical to leisure economy. Cumbria looked at climate change and visitor economy, but more in terms of increasing numbers of visitors. 3. It depends on local political will to move forward the issue and some politicians dont see this as important enough to drive forward policy in a strong way. A: Youre absolutely right, and we tend to find that in areas that have been hit by extreme weather e.g. a flood, they can see the impacts and do prioritise adaptation. If you have not been hit by it you would want to look at the expected impacts in your local area and use a sensible comparison with another area, e.g. we may not have had flooding in Preston but were very similar to Doncaster and this is how it affected them. Also think about specific areas of vulnerability - the social impacts tend to drive home the message. Its also about getting councillors on planning committees to talk about it what will you have to deal with in rural areas, how does it affect local distinctiveness, materials used, etc.. There is wholesale change on the way and its a steep learning curve for planning officers and planning committees. Adaptation changes to building design can be pretty subtle - a bit of raised levels, more solar shading so may not have a significant impact on local character. 4. Im intrigued by water deficit the difference between water shortages and flood. Are we thinking enough about draining off flood water, can we catch it and use it to supply new areas we are developing. With the rise in sea level, should we invest in more desalination? A: Im not an expert on water supply, but know that UU are required to have a climate change adaptation strategy, and are building climate change into future water management plans. But there are also issues of who will be responsible for and pay for increased capacity.
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5. Within the UK are there any best practice policies that standout. A: Louise will cover this in more detail later, but the ones in London and the South East are the most advanced, although they may not translate here because of the different situations, particularly with water shortages. Examples in Yorkshire are goof for flood risk. Theres no one policy thats got everything in. Identifying and Dealing with Flood Risk Matt Ellis, Environment Agency We have the problem of either too much or too little water, in 2009 there was significant flooding in Cumbria and the same year we saw drought permits and hosepipe bans, and fortunately August was terrible, and filled up the reservoirs. My role is North West Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator, I have been looking at how well prepared the NW is at dealing with flooding and heat, and where gaps are. We have an aspiration to be a well adapted region. In strict planning policy terms this is not anything new. There are a lot of references to planning for climate change in PPS 25. Legislative context Its changed so much because its about a growing awareness of risk and future flood risk. A lot of policy work has been done by DEFRA on flood management but particularly driven by the surface water flooding that affected the country in 2007. This blob diagram (slide 3) illustrates this, the pink blob represents properties at risk of fluvial (river) and coastal flooding 2.4m properties in England are at risk, and we have a handle on this, and EA has catchment flood management plans and we invest in sea defences. The purple blob represents properties at risk of surface water flooding, there are 3.8m of these at risk. If youre in the middle (ie the overlap of the two blobs) youre one of the 1 m at risk of both types of flooding. Understanding of the extra scale is driving a lot of government thinking on this. Surface water flooding we dont know half as much about where the surface water flood plains are. Increased regulation Flood Risk Regulations 2009 and Flood and Water Management Act 2010 with new duties and requirements that come out of these pieces of work. Overall responsibilities for flooding Environment Agency is responsible for river and coastal and large overland storage/ reservoirs. Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFA) are the unitary or county authorities which have responsibilities for the text on slide 4 (of which the red highlighted text is most significant)

Fundamentally LLFAs are responsible for managing local , ground water and surface water flooding, and for having reference to impacts from fluvial and coastal water flooding huge pressure to join these things up and understand what we do on the ground. LLFA have to produce a preliminary flood risk assessment. The key thing is this Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment to be done by June this year using existing info from surface water management plans, SFRAs, information from EA on indicative flood risk areas. These aer the significant SW flooding areas identified national and there are about 10 of these big bad surface water flood areas , which have over 30,000 people at risk. Regulations are particularly focused on looking at these really badly affected areas. The PFRA process looks at these indicative SW Areas with Local information. This will either confirm them, modify them or, if you find you have different information, identify NEW flood risk areas (not expected). Then you go through stages 3 and 4 on slide 4 of creating a flood hazard map of these and then create flood management plans. E.g. Hulls river/sea defences are OK, but got taken out by sheet and overland flooding. Liverpool flooding last year was surface water related due to overwhelming of the drainage. Slide 6 outlines what comes next. If you have 30,000 people, will need a flood hazard map and flood plan. This have to, amongst other things, to control development in those areas which will involve spatial planning. However, quite a lot of places across England in the North West wont have this level of problem, but if you have not got a significant flood risk area, the PFRA process will still give you a much better idea of your local flood risk. Very similar stuff coming out of Flood & Water Management Act(slide 8),requires a local flood risk management strategy, starting point of that is to do the preliminary flood risk assessment and this takes a lot of information from the other process.. these two things not totally joined up because the regulations 2009 are driven by Europe and had to be done by certain date. The two processes are very similar However, the SUDS approval powers will be coming to the local flood authority and will require close working with planning and DC. Planners will be approving SUDS schemes thinking about sealing over surfaces and developments, Im not going into whether LAs have expertise it may have gone in all the job changes sometimes we approve things that are not related to building regulations, but later things come up at adoption and approval stage. Is it still a planning issue? You might be involved yourselves or someone else personally if you think about Flood Risk Management Strategies and plans just like everything else, spatial planning will be earmarked to deliver some of that especially in terms of controlling major development etc . Essentially still think about where you put development, only putting
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it in flood plains if you have to, and can make it safe. Despite expected changes to the planning systems, flooding and water issues will all be there in whatever we end up with, especially when you see role of the insurance industry we will still probably have more detail around flooding in the new National planning policy framework than other issues purely because of their clout and the need to make sure they minimise their risk and liability. Planners will be expected to deliver lots of this, as usual! The issue for climate change is that we accept we understand fluvial flooding reasonably well. But what about the future bit we know less about? Especially the surface water bit, or rising sea levels, bigger waves, wetter winters.. some of it at the back of PPS 25 we can expect up to a 20% increase in river flows and a 30% increase in water run-off, this does not show what that means to a development. (UKCIP 09 shows these (see sections B or C in PPS25)). http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/ (Slide 12) shows the EA NW operational boundary these are flood zones 3 quite a lot of blue on the map, climate change affects on this will be big think about probability. These maps dont take account of defences, and it is rather hard to understand what a 20% increase in flow actually means. We need to think about how it changes the probability of flood events we are do understand and can relate to. (Slide 13 River Irwell the likelihood of flooding becomes over 2 times greater, in some cases up to 4 times more likely. Essentially what this is showing is that as flows increase as a result of Climate Change, the likelihood of a flood that we would today say has a 1 in 100 chance of occurring becomes less than 1 in 25 and it is this concept thats important and, in particular, the potential impact on development. But remember that this is fluvial flood risk not Surface Water as we are a way off having that sort of data yet. The impacts will only increase so when we see extreme events, they will be really extreme. E.g. Carlisle 2005 experienced a 1:100 year event, if that happens as a 1:25 year event thats the challenge this will be more common place. (Slide 14) This is a map showing 1m+ surface water flooding risk whilst this does not take account of drains and pumps this is where surface water could pond that is the challenge for planning. The Carlisle flood defences have been built to 1:100 year and are flexibly built so they can be increased if necessary. We will see applications for building in flood risk areas, in defended areas, and there may be areas that become at risk over time. We need to think about extreme events, and exceedence of defencesa lot of breach modelling has been done in Carlisle, defences wont fall down, areas of human action, modelling for
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overtopping, leaving flood gate open, looking at stilts, raised floors etc. However, there are other areas where there are defences, tidal bankments, but there wont be this kind of breach information, and we should be requiring that for planning as part of the flood risk assessment that accompanies a planning application it should be the developer who thinks about what happens in an extreme event. Most large scale developments will have a drainage plan that includes accommodating a 1:30 year storm. A developer should think about what happens and where it goes when it comes out of the pipes and how it is channelled and managed on the site to minimize the damage, both now and over the life of development. Beyond that, depending on what is the suggested risk to buildings and how to make them resilient and the occupants safe. The onus on developer is to prove that. The Environment Agency would advise on the quality of output from the developer. Often there is an expectation that well tell the developer what to do but they need to go away and consider these issues in their plans. In policy terms, there is quite a lot out there already, we are talking about policy hooks in terms of residual risk that PPS25 has quite a good chapter on that flags up what might be done broadly, so there is basis for negotiation with the developer. This should ensure that the EA and Planning officers dont feel they are making unreasonable requests and adding costs to schemes. Developers need to consider the flood risk and climate change extra risk. It will become more and more important to work in partnership. Include the emergency planners who often dont take into account reducing risks but who tend to go for bigger and bigger emergency plans make sure the emergency and risk management functions work together and realise they can reduce the emergency plan by avoiding the risks of catastrophe. How do we tackle climate change impacts? Its not new though its about PPS 25 Appraising risk Managing risk Working in partnership Basically we understand PPS25 around avoiding inappropriate development in FR areas. What is important in CC terms is both in terms of the emerging SW FR Challenge and even development behind adequate defences and ones which take account of CC increased flows, as we move into the future, extreme events will continue to happen. The likelihood of these exceeding defence capacity causing overtopping or even breach or the likelihood of fast flowing SW flooding increases dramatically. What do you do then in planning terms when decisions have been made to put development in defended or undefended risk or areas which may, as a result of CC become at risk over time?

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Addressing this residual risk becomes increasingly important and therefore issues of flood protection and resilience must be considered with the primary aim being to prevent water from entering the property and ensuring occupants are safe. However, resilience of the property to flooding is also an important consideration as it is not feasible, especially with CC to ensure properties remain dry under all circumstances. But how is this achieved? Well firstly an understanding is needed around what happens in exceedence events and therefore the level of residual risk and the management measures which will be required. Carlisle for example has recent flood defences which are to standard plus CC but breach scenarios were modelled which looked at things like what happened and where water went if flood gates were left open! Where this sort of modelling doesnt exist it must be a consideration within the FRA for a particular development and the onus is on the developer to identify this and responses which the EA will then consider and advise on! Also in terms of SW management on sites, consideration needs to be given, again through the FRA process and the negotiations with the EA as to how flows above the site design standards will be dealt with. It is not just about stopping water getting in, or making it easy to clean up (sewage and water) its also about dealing with surface water and flows there are links to green infrastructure, we need to think about where we direct this water and how it matches strategic open spaces it might be difficult to get surface water attenuation in a mixed use, dense urban space. (slide 16) New Brighton Regeneration Site mixed use thats a secondary flood defence wall everything behind the wall is raised, Gates close automatically on receipt of EA flood warning. If that gate does not shut everything falls down. This is on the old Lido site that was destroyed by winter gales, very exposed on sea front in Wirral. Slide 17 - Irk Valley Community School, Blakely - to make it remotely acceptable especially with vulnerable users, the school was built on stilts, with raised walkways to take people out of flood plain, raised floors plus freeboard, built to deal with a 1:100 year event plus climate change. When youre having discussions with the EA and there is an exception, consideration will be there not just for climate change allowances, there will be discussion of a major event, or failure about what happens then. If you think back to the UK CIP 09 ranges this is about 20% flows on average. However, there will be extreme events and we need to think about how the measures perform at the extremes, do we get loss of life with massive storm surge, therefore certain uses might not be suitable. Slide 18 - Thingwall Nurseries Wirral redevelopment site for NHS primary care site surface water management is issue. It was designed to handle a 1:100 year flood event, plus 20% increase for climate change PLUS consideration of what happens to flows when the systems fail. 25 litre
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p/ha reduced rates of runoff, swales, SUDs, overland flow routes that look at exceedance what happens when you get more, are flows directed down roads, trying to anticipate what happens when a bigger than design event happens and that it is not fundamentally a problem for the users of the development. All about green space (see later). Q: Who is responsible for the upkeep of the gate? A: Things like that will be on a register and the LLFA will have some responsibility. EA charging and developer contributions, we might take a commuted sum. Q: So would be like rights of way, where it gets to maintenance, and has not had any and you get a flood event, then what? A: Cost of sustainability of flood defences in the EA capital flood defence scheme there are capital and revenue maintenance associated with that scheme. The EA could turn round and say with limited money they might not invest in it. If a developer came forward and funded it themselves, youd have to be confident that the liability would not come back or the development would not be safe. Issue about how contribution is ring-fenced and spent and if the flood defence is not maintained it could be critical. Q: Was the nursery PCT site designed to take water away from other areas or just the site itself? A: It was designed to protect the site itself and ensure and that it was better re impact downstream than whatever was there previously. Q: Thingwall Nurseries: was it driven by planning requirement or just a motivated developer? Local planner commented: There was a long battle over that green field site, and the PCT pulled out of going to inquiry on appeal and came back with the EA involved and it got stung for everything. Q: Has any more been done on overtopping of defences? (Maggie from Cumbria) In 2009 I had a number of developments in lea of Carlisle defences and kept having people saying we dont know what to do if the floods overtop the defences. E.g. Cockermouth had a 1: 1,000 year flood. We went round the houses on what work was being done with over topping. In the end I made the developer do concrete floors, higher electricity points and a flood management plan I could easily have been wasting the developers money but people are saying what did we do paying for flood defences if we cant develop the site. A: Its very hard to come up with guidelines especially for flood defence, i.e. how far back dyou have to be, depends on local circumstances the precautionary approach you took there seemed very proportionate. One thing that is critical is to get the evidence base and policy hooks to allow those requirements to be in place when you have the discussion with the EA. No one will definitely say what measures should be taken at a generic level. However, if theres nothing in your policy framework talking about flooding and climate change and changes over time then you will find it
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hard to require measures from developers. And you end up just outside areas, and you get an extreme event and there is flooding. Q: If you have a flood defence and likely it will overtop in an extreme event, are the EA looking at where the water will go? A: There is a requirement for the developer to do a flood risk assessment that looks at where the water will go. If the developer wants to develop there, they need to pay a consultant, otherwise the EA doing all the work on the planning application, which is a dodgy place to be. Developer needs to do an assessment to say where it goes and how to manage it. You did the right thing to build in some extra safety. Q: County Council taking responsibility for various flood plains, I have not heard from Lancashire County Council about it when does the timetable for the LLFA start. A: The flood risk appraisal needs to be done by June this year based on best current available data. Summer next year flood risk areas need to be identified, June 2015 flood risk management plan needs to happen. I dread to think how many LDF changes, national policy changes you might have during that period! But you might find some of the work on Local Flood risk comes along in quite a timely way and provides another chunk of evidence to drive/support policies. I am assuming there are flood risk management policies in draft LDFs. We need to put the hooks in to justify where we think were going to be but when there is a discussion with the EA and they say it all needs to be on stilts at huge costs needs to have evidence/justification behind it. Lancashire County Council have done some scoping on new duties and what it means for the county and where some of their current processes leave them. Link to joint EA / LCC presentation on new duties: http://www.catchmentchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/LawtonBR-Forum-Lancs-Uni-Feb2011-IL.pdf Q: I believe the flood authorities that will designate buildings that must be kept how will this be enforced? A: If an authority designates a structure as having some defence or mitigation property you have to get permission to do anything to that structure. There will be a database of assets and the Lead Local Flood Authority will decide. E.g. on ordinary water courses that would need to be identified and protected to do the flood risk job. Q: I assume this is going to be buildings, as often its permitted development to demolish a building A: Article 4 direction, where you can remove permitted development rights in an area, in certain parts of the country the developments ARE the flood defence. I assume you could remove that right. Its a bit messy trying to get an Article 4 through, I can understand merit of needing to defend a building that acts as a piece of defence, but will be difficult in practice.
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A: Youd have thought that the legislation should address that. Information on the new Flood risk management roles and responsibilities for local authorities is found on DEFRAs website: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/legislation/la-roles/ Lead Local Authority duty to maintain a register Information Note: http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/documents/interim2/llfa-registerinfonote.pdf An issue that came up in Preston was if somethings approved, is it built, often nobody ever knows what was actually built on the ground and if it conforms to the EA requirements gap between permission and building regs. Aside from privatised building regs companies. We would recommend that you get Building Regs, DC, forward planners, emergency planners, economic development, housing mangers, heritage people etc round the table to discuss what a planning response to flood risk might look like and who it affects too. Q: Flip side of previous question, can you stop people taking out permeable barriers, like a hedge and putting in a wall, if youre assuming there is a route for water flow can you stop that happening? A: I dont know. In a major development, you could appeal to home owners maybe if someones going to place a fence, thats rather hard to stop. If you do front drives, youre meant to put in a permeable surface Q: There is government tech guidance on permeable driveways, if not permeable it has to flow into a flowerbed, or a suds, across frontage of driveway. A: Over time, as large and small developers start using these materials, especially in new schemes, there may be exposure of the block paving industry to these technologies. Q: Surface Water Plan you mentioned before, where has it come from and how it will be developed (the map) A: As part of working up for new duties and to give local authorities an indicative idea of whether they had any at risk populations, two lots of mapping was done. One I showed you was areas susceptible to surface water flooding one rainfall event took an amount of water and dropped it on the land and looked at where it would pond and looked at susceptibility banding. Plus flood map for surface water, 2 rainfall events, a 1:200 deep and a 1:30 and deep (crude) where they exist and in combination nationally imp 10 flood risk areas, youd essentially ground truth that, to see if it was that area, if it did exist, and what your surface water management plan provided in terms of better intelligence. Pretty high thresholds of that, 30,000 population area, in first cycle of that they dont expect any new big bad ugly areas that will need specific planning. They may move the goalposts as information gets better. The surface water mapping wont probably throw up anything significant now.
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Q: Interested in how to get Greenfield run off in a development how would you asses a development for this, links to impermeable surfaces etc. A: Not personally aware, UU have recently started charging per impermeable water areas (some for foul drainage..) in past no charge eg park in Lancaster, 14k over 3 month period. UU have done a GIS exercise looking at public open space, and youre put into a band. Have a look and see what guidance we can find. Later it came up that the approach taken with a points system in Malmo may be useful: http://www.grabs-eu.org/downloads/EP6%20FINAL.pdf Q: In Central Lancs, we are preparing our LDF, were looking at the community infrastructure levy, should we be proactive in looking at flood zone 3 areas and putting flood defence/resilience costs into our CIL charging schedule? A: Not sure about how much detail and confidence you would have to have on these issues for CIL as costs that might be incurred and impacts of liability might mean that youd not have the evidence to cover this within CIL at this time. I suggest you engage with the EA planning team though as I said Im not sure how much detail youd have to have with CIL schedule and how much youd be able to get to avoid challenge at consultation in December this year. However, presuming the CIL charging schedule isnt going to be a one off? (i.e it will be reviewed) there will be potential to work with UU and EA on wider water infrastructure issues to get a picture of capacity and where it is and where improvements needed if were looking at housing need over 15 years. This could be built into future CIL rounds! A: Work with EA, UU. This is vital, as you dont want conflicting messages/evidence from the two coming out at an examination (i.e. different understandings about UU capacity and growth or requirements for SUDS and adoption liability issue with what the EA want.) Recommend round table UU/EA discussions and I commend you to example in Rossendale, theyve developed an MOU / agreement of understand with UU and EA what the issues are and whos going to do what in terms of SUDs response.. rather high level. In some places, e.g. East Anglia, has a three way agreement about how certain environmental issues will be dealt with, mainly relating to water quality phosphates etc. for example this was in response to the fact that the only town suitable/capable of accommodating growth was was completely constrained re phosphate and sewer capacity. However, the 3 way agreement to do detailed water cycle studies and develop solutions (and signing up to this plan of action with Breckland district council Meant that the inspector was happy with the soundness of the LDF in the shorter term. Q:/Comment: about UUs view on capacity issues vs shareholder requirements and issues of liability around SUDS

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A: not everywhere in NW will be a problem in drainage capacity terms. However, a failure to effectively engage with spatial planning from all sides will not impress shareholders if this leads to acute capacity problems within asset management plan periods which require UU to have to bring forward expenditure as my understanding is that UU have to underwrite the risk of that if they get it wrong, it could affect them in share price etc. What we might find is that as we have locations approaching sticking points, unless you can take all surface water out of system there are real problems. Therefore it is in UUs interests to want to work with you more and they should start saying where they can cope with what, then you and they can put it into the plans. Flooding, water quality and drainage start to influence strategic sites, settlement hierarchy can be discussed. But UU and EA need to be round the table for a structured discussion which will hopefully enable better information exchange which all parties can sign up to but that will be fit for purpose in spatial planning terms. Planning for Climate Change Adaptation Gill Fenna - Flood resilience in buildings The DCLG 2007 guidance notes on improving flood performance of new buildings includes recommended strategies for different flood risk areas and they have tested the resilience of different construction materials e.g. permeability of types of brick. This kind of information is useful for developers. www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/flood_performance.pdf Flood Risk Hierarchy & the Design Strategy Avoid take the development outside/above flood risk area Resistance - stop it coming in Resilience reduce impact Recovery sorting out damage The design strategy depends on the expected height and flow of flood, but that assumes you know what they are likely to be. You might want to take a belt and braces approach if theres uncertainty about the level of risk. Youll also need to consider evacuation and access for emergency services, taking account of the people who are likely to be in the building, so for example, in school or sheltered housing this would be critical, less so for a transport depot. If you have an understanding of the flood risk, you may take different steps depending on how high water is likely to rise. You dont want to keep water out of a building where pressure of water might damage the structure. If flood water height is under 30cm you try to keep it out. If over 60cm you need to let it through the property. In between you keep it out, then let it through.
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Water has lots of ways of getting in through doors and windows, poor seals, air bricks, seepage through bricks, gaps in pipework going outside, and one real problem is sewage/drain backflow. Structural damage can be caused to - walls, through impact of debris, pressure of water - erosion of foundations - silt build up in cavity walls - corrosion of metal fixings - deterioration of insulation materials - warping of timber - cracked floors and plaster - damage to internal fittings and decoration - rot and mould. Services and fittings damaged include; - electricity wiring - water and heating pipes and insulation - electricity, gas and water supply and meters - communication equipment - carpets and flooring - kitchen units - electrical appliances - furniture and personal belongings. Avoidance is usually through raising floors, (although raised thresholds can give a conflict with accessibility) hard landscaping around the site, SUDS, or redirection of water, exclusion by boundary walls. However, its important to make sure you dont cause a problem downstream, and that your drainage system can cope with extreme downpours, e.g. tanks for temporary collection of water. Water exclusion from the property will need to use water resistant construction materials e.g. engineering brick, sealed uPVC units, ceramic floors, concrete floor slabs etc. Water Entry Strategy if youre designing to allow water in, the materials need to facilitate drying and cleaning, and you need to consider where the water will flow to and how you will get it out afterwards. So you would be looking at accessible under-floor areas, sacrificial plaster and wall coverings, removable inner doors etc. You might put in flood water storage tanks, or design ground floor car parking areas to hold water and reduce any downstream impact. Fittings sockets at high level and fed from above rather than below, kitchen units made modular or of resilient materials such as plastic or stainless steel (some might be sacrificial), raising the level of electrical equipment such as the cooker or fridge, providing access behind fixtures and fittings for cleaning, putting non-return valves on drains.

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Think about it early its better to have resilience designed in and not reliant on the occupant. If you can minimize damage to the property and reduce the time it takes to recover youll significantly help the person who ends up living in the property. Questions/Comments 1. Are you saying planners should consult with BC there are some conflicts with Part M of the Building Regs, and much of the design bits are covered by part C. A: Yes, its important to understand how it can be implemented as well as what you should be asking for. 2. One job I dealt with in a flood area, the knee jerk reaction from planners was to raise the building by 600mm higher than next door buildings, but there was a conflict with Part M on lack of access a bit of common sense is needed. A: Yes, you need to take a balanced approach, but with new development its important to avoid mistakes made previously just because neighbouring buildings dont have any flood resilience doesnt mean you can ask for it know we know more about the risks. 3. You cant refuse application because it does not comply with building regulations. It comes back to the level of detail planners are looking at, its different to what weve historically done including the way we are used to working. Getting proactive advice from BC officers is a different way of thinking. 4. There is still too much confusion on sustainable construction, planners dont know what were meant to do, BC dont know. Until the government sorts it out itll be difficult. Lots of people dont understand the difference between planning permission and building control, and you can get changes that then arent built according to building regulations. It will lead to problems. A: Yes, but thats not something that the government is likely to sort out the way were move towards localism means youll need to sort it out yourselves. Building regulations tend to lag behind policy, for example proposed changes to Part C are not there yet. So there will be issues between BC and DC about what you actually do, but youll have to resolve these locally. Matt Ellis comment it was interesting when we were working on risk assessment in Rossendale, looking at spatial planning, in the first meeting to look at plans and sites and allocations, they had building control, economic development, policy planners, housing and drainage people there. It does not solve all the problems, but was a very positive way of working. www.climatechangenorthwest.co.uk/adapting-key-service-areas-toclimate-change.html

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5. Theres also a contradiction in that government policy plan for growth regards the planning system and regulatory framework as a barrier to growth (Enterprise Zones etc). On other hand there is localism agenda, it seems to me that no one has thought it through. A: We will always have to deal with conflicts in policy. Local understanding and negotiation is a key part of dealing with it. If your Regeneration team dont understand that what they want to do is going to cause problems, they have no basis to understand your planning issues, so that dialogue is important. 6. Most examples are about new development. Weve seen a fundamental change in perception of flood risk, especially surface water, so we have areas of existing development at high risk what measures being taken retrospectively to tackle this? A: The EA did a flood resilience pilot in Salford in Lower Irwell Valley that went into properties and offered free flood boards and automated warning some people tore up the letters saying they did not want the insurance companies to know they are in a flood risk area. But the insurance industry already knows. Others thought that evidence of flood resilience measures such as flood barriers would put off a potential purchaser. One interesting point is that since weve installed a flood storage basin, we cant persuade people theyre still in a flood risk zone - a 1:100 year flood risk could mean water over a metre deep getting the understanding across is almost impossible. EA are trialling I-phone apps for flood warnings, but if people dont want to react you still have the problem. If public engagement is very difficult, it makes the strategic response critical. An area wide strategic plan is essential. In Gloucestershire, communities that were hit badly by the floods have set up community flood resilience groups and are working out their own plans. This could be sorted immediately if the insurance industry took a firmer stand on it. Q: How much detail can a planner go into? We cant specify what to do with a kitchen. A: If the buildings in a flood risk area, you can specify that planning permission is dependent on resilience measures being put in, and you need to help the developer understand why youre asking for it. That would then help make the property more saleable, the developer can say flood risk measures are built in and its a lot more adaptable to flood risk, reducing the cost to the insurance company if a flood happens, so there is a financial benefit to them to demonstrate their houses are better than others.

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Q: Is the 2007 guidance directed towards building companies, or is it planning guidance? Can it weaken resistance to building on flood risk areas? A: Its aimed more at construction than policy, but its useful for you to know whats in it. Your start point is youre not going build there, but if there are over-riding reasons for the development, then use it to make sure what you build is safe. Planning Responses Policy & Practice Louise Marix Evans, Quantum Strategy & Technology Louise asked places that had flooded what theyd done about it. Hertfordshire County Council worked with districts to put together information for each LPA to use. http://www.hertslink.org/buildingfutures/16557273/ Their climate change adaptation pack is very clearly presented checklists for developers and for DC officers. This is not required in policy and they looked at whether they could turn these checklists into an SPD but needed to be different for each LPA. The Adaptation pack is being used as part of standard guidance for some of the LPAs. Allerdale Are updating their SPD in light of their 2009 floods. They have not done anything especially new at moment. They are using PPS25 sequential test. They may start to stipulate resilience measures in buildings but raised possible issue with specifying measures that cut across Building Regs. Has to be practical measures doesnt always happen. Hull All of Hull is in FR3. Hull uses standing advice to show which developments and uses fall into which risk area this shows who has to be consulted and what the likely outcome will be. It is a living document so updated quarterly based on new information and discussion as it comes (e.g. interpretation issues around policy for extensions and for new buildings that may be same floor size). Surface water management plans will soon influence policy in Hull too. The standing advice has been used and tested for 2 years had lots of initial protests from building agents but they got used to it. Now OK with small developers as well as it shows clearly what they have to do and doesnt require too much other work. Turning into an SPD may be issues with retaining as a living document, however, Hull is seeking certainty not rigidity. Doncaster

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2008 Guidance note endorsed by EA. They have managed to defend it at appeal. It has now been converted to a SPD and holds weight in planning decisions. The document provides very clear guidance and good to use with developers. It states very clearly what information developers need to provide, what kind of information they need to use for the Sequential guide and Exception test. It has a flow chart that shows the routes through these tests which is very helpful and easier than reading PPS25. It also provides: Minimum Standards for Drainage Design and Flood Risk Guidance for Developers producing Site Specific Flood Risk Assessments Guidance for Developers producing Drainage Strategies If Doncaster were not developing in flood risk areas they would have to use green belt. They are doing mitigation work with EA to make sites more resistant. They use S106 agreements with developers. DC view is that it works well. Was tested with agents and DC so they could make it work well before became policy. The DC team work closely with BC and policy as soon as application is raised. They have problems with change of use and bringing in derelict land in flood risk areas. E.g. brownfield site, bringing it into employment use and therefore reducing transport and keeping community working in local area vs moving employees out of the area to employment sites. The onus is then on the developer to show they can mitigate the flood risks. Common issues that came up Allerdale mentioned example of planning application in Cockermouth the EA do not want change of use of first floor on main street into a flat, but Allerdale dont want a dead town centre (retail only) so there is a tension here. Sheffield example of a mixed use (24 apartments, offices and retail) development in flood risk area, the planners didnt want people living in a FR area with possible access issues. This was overturned by the Secretary of State. Blackburn application for 11 houses in flood zone 3. The planners have asked that the accommodation is off ground floor so the developer has proposed ground floor garages. This has raised conservation issues doesnt look nice/usual. If youre approving thinking that could flood and cause loss of life what do you do if going against EA advice? In Hulls standing advice they send these decisions to the Secretary of State. Summary
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Test proposed policy with a wide range of people including Economic Development, DC, BC, Heritage etc Trial it (including discussions with local agents) Let people know what you expect Maintain flexibility Questions Q: What about the relationship between DM and BC/ Building Regs? Has anyone, through a planning decision tried to control spec of internal layout, electrical fittings etc? The response is wheres your policy? At the moment our policy doesnt have the teeth to press for this. Any experience? A: We would never ask for that. A: (Louise) I will contact and ask Doncaster what they do. Q: Has anyone permitted CSH 4-6? That will have adaptation requirements. Councils are using those standards in other parts of country which affects internal fixtures and layout. A: What you need is a robust policy hook and good design guidance. Building Regs is lagging behind you cant condition it. Q: Does anyone get together with BC? A: Generally not until its a necessity developers will always work to the minimum. Get good design guidance. Get e.g. on how has worked in Doncaster and Salford. Q: Does it not become part of the conditions? Enforcement would become difficult A: Our residential design guide doesnt cover this. A: There are two different issues if EA objected to a development but with mitigation is OK, then the developer can get permission. EA doesnt go to the level of detail of internal spec. How to control whether they do this is dependent on your systems of enforcement. If its specified in the bill of works then you can use outside BC agencies as long as it is clearly specified. Enforcement you cant do anything if householder wants to change the measures put in later, but you need to make sure information is given to the householder to make sure they understand why its done. HIPs would have had this information to pass from one owner to another. Q: In Salford our lead member for planning has asked for an easy checklist comparing BREEAM & CSH against Building Regs. Cant assume that B Regs is directly equivalent to CSH etc. Has anyone done a comparison we can use? Ask Tim Kay but probably not.
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A: Codes have flexibility in them so its difficult to be exact because there are not direct equivalents. CSH3 equivalence is only for e.g. energy not everything else. Well have a look and put this in as a coaching request so look out for the information.

In South Lakes we did a call for sites and looked at flood risk areas and then we took out areas that might case flooding downstream. The slimming down of PPSs might lead to need for more local SPDs we dont want to be left with policy gap. Q: Cumbria on most sites surface water is an issue. PPS25 predictions do they need updating? Are we dealing with future levels? A: Matt Ellis, EA: the PPS25 predictions were re-issued last year. Qualitative data stands up fine. The issue is how to reduce run-off and physically control water need to provide huge levels of attenuation. If we are looking at brownfield sites and can achieve greenfield rates of runoff then that is a positive outcome. If we dont change downstream drainage then we havent made it any worse. Exceedance flows and flow routes need to come into discussions for the sites look at design life of the development. Q: Were not engineers we need to know if what EA is asking for is unreasonable. E.g. the EA wanted a flood plan for the whole of a school site when they only applying for a small redevelopment. Q: What about in suburban areas paving of front gardens not provided with required drainage but not sure who monitors and enforces this. A: The EA operational areas have 60 people on ground to cover all environmental issues so there is no capacity to monitor all developments. Similar in planning offices. For critical sites that the EA has objected to we will monitor especially for safety e.g. Woolwich development behind a flood barrier, if it fails it would be catastrophic developer offered escape routes out of the roofs! But dont know if ever happened can be very scary. Big issue for areas with high coastal defences whos in the buildings and can you get them out? Wont know if what is actually built meets criteria if there are amendments to the design. Climate Change The urban heat island and planning response John Handley/Andrew Speak Manchester University Prepared with Andrew Speak sponsored by Manchester City Council and The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
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I wanted to reinforce the context for today, at Copenhagen the debate was about trying to hold global temperatures over this century to 2C. If you can hold global warming to 2C the impacts are manageable in some of the most sensitive parts of the world. The climate science community are now saying we should expect a 4C increase this century so we need to be preparing for a really quite significant climate change. Our own Met Office (Hadley Centre) agree with this, and by the 2070s. I am really pleased to see that CLASP are running this programme and there is a cohort of professional planners here to attend, because the decisions we take now will have a big influence later in the century. There is an upside for the North West, conditions in Southern Europe are going to get unpleasant, very hot and dry. Further North than us, annual precipitation will go up very significantly. The UK, sitting with the Atlantic to protect us, is reasonably well placed to deal with this. The NW is very well placed, in contrast to the SE in terms of water supply. Thats the upside, although we have a lot to be concerned about. May give our region some competitive advantage. Urban Heat Islands. What is it? (slide 3) shows a satellite image of land use in Atlanta in the USA, you can see how higher surface temperature is concentrated in the built up areas. Heat Island can be at least 8 C above the surrounding countryside, more in London in the city centre, evident in winter and summer and strongest at night. It reflects the fact that the pattern of energy change is modified by urbanisation. In the countryside, where vegetation surfaces predominate, a significant proportion of solar energy is used to evaporate water from leaves (evaportanspiration) and this has a cooling effect. In cities there is less greenspace and therefore reduced evaporative cooling. Furthermore buildings and roads with low reflectance and high thermal mass are able to absorb and store heat and release it in evening. The reflectivity of different surfaces (albedo) strongly influences heat absorption. (slide 4) shows grass on roof and some burn off, dry and dead (in foreground, high temp, healthy grass is evapo-transpiring and sending heat out so is cooler, and there is a hot building in the background. (slide 5) shows that geometric effects are important sky view camera in Gothenburg, outskirts to centre, heat is reflected and bounced around, in urban canyons although there may be some shade benefits. Anthropogenic inputs too (i.e. more heat is added by common activity), in addition to the sun heat from vehicles, buildings and metabolism from people present.
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(slide 7) For Greater Manchester, modelling by Sarah Lindley and Claire Smith shows total heat flux from anthropogenic sources, 60% of the additional heat from buildings, 32% from traffic and 8% from humans. Also an interesting diagram, in that it that shows that energy inputs are not just concentrated at the heart of the conurbation, Greater Manchester and NW England are poly centric, and outlying settlements have localised heat islands too. Whats Climate Change going to do to all this? (slide 8) climate projections for the UK (UKCIP09) show we can expect increases of 3 4 C and elevated summer temperatures and greater frequency of heat waves. Id be interested to know how many of you have used the latest set of Climate Change projections from the government, and how user friendly you find them? My feeling is they are tricky to use, because you have 25km resolution, or one 5km grid square and then you have a lot of data for one square. In Manchester weve characterised local climate into Pennines, Pennine fringe and Mersey Basin, (slide 9) this could be interesting for NW as a whole, you can show these nice patterns.. picture at bottom left shows maximum summer temperatures increasing into the 2050s. The point was made this morning that one way of thinking about these numbers, is to say where else in the world might we be like under this degree of change. In a 2050s, high scenario, Manchester moves to the mouth of the Loire (although with less sunshine) our climate analogue is near Nantes with outliners in S Italy. Recent work by the Met Office (Hadley Centre) following on from the Scorchio project at University of Manchester if you factor in large scale urbanisation, has implications for London, the Midlands and NW where urbanisation is high enough to influence regional climate (slide 10). Q: Are you saying youre taking into account more people moving into cities? A: No, the global circulation model that scientists use, is been downscaled to a regional scale that is what the Hadley Centre have done in this diagram, those models dont take account of difference in land surface. In heavily urbanised areas, you need to factor that in. Why does this matter? (slide 11) We heard about the European heatwave of 2003 and 35,000 excess deaths, 2,000 in UK. This graph shows temperature and humidity. In the UK were in a 60% humidity area and if we move along the graph to yellow zone which represents great discomfort and orange is dangerous as you move along the temp increase low 30s youre into the danger area. We must not stop insulating buildings, we still need to deal with cold winters when they occur, and these measures will also protect you in the summer.

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We anticipate in central Manchester we would expect those kind of conditions formally defined as a heatwave by the Department of Health, up to 9 episodes by 2050s and 30 by 2080s. (slide 12) There is also an interaction with air quality surface roughness in urban areas interferes with natural air flow and creates a boundary layer (of air) beneath which pollutants can build up areas of stagnant or stationery air masses. We have discussed ventilation at room scale, but its also important to consider city level ventilation. Planning Response (slide 13) This is generic, applies to flooding and other things. We need to reduce exposure (e.g. to heat stress) and protect vulnerable populations. Climate Change brings some benefits to urban populations. We have poorest housing stocks in Europe in relation to climate, fuel poverty and excess winter death are too high. Climate change will reduce winter heating demand and winter mortality. There is potential for increased mortality in summer (during heatwaves) but the net effect does not outweigh the benefit of which excess deaths in winter. There will be potential for a more outdoor, healthier lifestyle and so planning the outdoor realm becomes crucial. This includes to some extent providing shade, it suggests we need a wide range of climate opportunity in our outdoors places, we want solar gain in winter, protection of shade in summer. (slide 14) Complicated looking diagram, but straightforward climate change is driving climate related hazards exposure creates risk.. e.g. intense rainfall interacts with urban paving to create floodwater and risk. Elements at risk include people, housing etc and their vulnerability depends on their social economic status. We can reduce exposure or increase population resilience; the two approaches are complementary. Apply this to heat. Firstly reduce vulnerability to heat stress, DOH Heatwave Protection Plan, thats something your emergency planners will be aware of. Planners and urban designers are more concerned with reducing exposure to heat stress through managing high temperatures TCPA diagram from useful guide, Climate Change Adaptation by Design. We need to respond through three interlocking levels of scale conurbation, neighbourhood and building. (Slide 17) at a conurbation we need to focus on integrated planning of developments and greenspace, e.g. Liverpool Green Infrastructure Strategy. One of the things we need to consider is the notion of ventilation at conurbation scale. In many N European countries many planners would
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not do their job w/out a climate model. E.g. (slide 18) Stuttgart cold air drainage mapping, problems with combination of topography and problem of poor air quality and heat where air does not mix. Promoting cold air drainage is important. (slide 19) shows Stuttgart Climate Plan, open sites with significant climate activity, high sensitivity on intervention that changes their use .. these are protected like our green belt. At the same time they have 4 categories for urban development from critical climate to non-key areas. My colleague Michael Hebbert doing research looking globally and in UK at why this type of approach is not being particularly well embraced by planners. In the UK context we have an Atlantic climate with well mixed conditions, and apart from historic air pollution issues its not something at the forefront of our agenda. And as the climate changes these type of questions will become more important. Blackburn is the sort of situation, dense urban settlement surrounded by hills where these things could become important. (slide 20) At a neighbourhood scale, we need to the think about bioclimatic design principles picture shown of Middle East. Things we can do at a neighbourhood scale maximize evaporative cooling, orientation of buildings, light coloured finishes, porous pavements that provide evaporative cooling, green roofs with lighter finishes with higher albedo, and shade trees in city centres, around housing and vulnerable populations like schools and hospitals. (slide 22) Shows orientation of solar gain in south facing vs west facing (bottom) in exactly same climate regime. In the US where they design with the sun in mind, in Britain our approach is to let the sunshine come in and somehow we need to do that in the winter and to reduce it to an extent in the summer. This is a design manual: Sun, wind and light, Architectural design strategies, used by architects and master planners in the US. Well need to think this about more in the future. Finally planning at the buildings scale, (slide 23) we need to avoid maladaptation, we need passive cooling solutions, this diagram is from an article by Jake Hacker, looking (top diagram) at working conditions in relation to temperature in a conventional city office block (60s) 1980s already problematic and getting to significant level at 40% by 2050s. Middle one is mixed mode, more modern, and bottom one is a well designed naturally ventilated office, which remains cool, with good design you can provide good working conditions and avoid excess energy use for cooling despite climate change. At building scale (slide 24) we list things that can be done planting, advanced materials, innovative use of water e.g. at a hotel in Freiburg there is groundwater extracted, and pumped back (paid for by self w/in 2 years and avoided need for forced cooling). Most cities have groundwater underneath with a gradient which can be used for cooling.
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Increasing ventilation, use of thermal storage and mechanical cooling, chilled beams (slide 25) We need to think about how we interact here between mitigation and adaptation, something like use of green infrastructure where we have use of broadleaf trees for example, the trees fix carbon and reduce energy demand. Nice example of where we overlap and both things benefit. Some things may be good for adaptation but dont contribute to mitigation, and some things can make it worse like the use of increased air conditioning which drives up greenhouse gas emissions. We need to recognise that in the long run the best way to adapt is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions thats the overriding requirement. This is being explored in many agendas, especially transport. (slide 29) Passive cooling example, the Contact Theatre on Oxford Road, based on physics of termite mounds, turrets naturally ventilate using thermal and convection qualities. To conclude, climate change will strengthen the urban heat island, reduce winter mortality and heating demand, and increase summer mortality. At different scales we need to respond at a conurbation, neighbourhood and building scale to encourage ventilation, evaporative cooling, reflectivity, shading and heat exchange. And adaptation and mitigation need to be complementary See all the materials listed in the last two slides. I brought some along for you to look at ! (gets a books out of a rucksack) by Earthscan: Building for Climate Change, the challenge for construction planning and energy, Peter F Smith, Earthscan. Heat Islands, Understanding and Mitigating Heat in Urban Areas, Lisa Gartland, Earthscan Planning for Climate Change, Strategies for Mitigation and Adaptation for Spatial Planners, Eds: Simin Davoudi, Jenny Crawford and Abid Mehmood, Earthscan Convivial Urban Spaces Creating Effective Public Places, Henry Shaftoe, Earthscan Sun, Wind and Light, Architectural Design Strategies, Brown and DeKay This is a good holiday read! - Turned out nice, How the British Isles will change as the World heats up, Marek Kohn, Faber Q: Reduced winter mortality I thought Hadley were looking at changes to Gulf Stream and more Northerly climate winters?
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A: Basically the climate modelling at the moment suggests while there may be some slowing of Gulf Stream by end of this century it wont be of magnitude to get that kind of switch. Slowing may be a bit faster than the models are predicting, and its being measured so we need to keep an eye on it. Switching off of Gulf Stream (and related major uncertainties called sleeping giants) are issues for later on next century, whether they occur will depend on whether we get a grip on reducing emissions this century. Weve set off some things off already for next 200 years, e.g. sea level rise thats set in train. Q: Urban Heat Island, Preston I live on edge of Blackburn I can see Blackpool tower, one or two quiet days in winter or summer and I can see a brown fog over Preston Preston on West Coast, you think it would get the wind Q: Transport provides 32% of heat in city area, whole relationship between transport and urban form. Interesting work done by GM leadership council (AGMA) on state of affairs on town centres (not Manchester) all of them losing employment, all them are local hubs for public transport and were getting v disbursed employment especially along the M65 corridor. Public transport depends on strong corridors of movement. In Blackburn we have weak employment public transport has been wiped out from 3 bus an hour to 8 a day nothing in peak hour, or Sunday. Council policy came with council tax demand, priority is connecting communities including integrated affordable transport network Reality is the opposite. A: That would apply to a lot of places, there was a very interesting seminar at the University last week on findings of EU project of peri-urban environment of European cities, discussion of how challenging it is to planning to get an impact on these problems. So often we create a regulatory framework to sustain business as usual when we have to step back and make a really significant effect. You need sub-regional or regional planning. Q: Freiburg they have so much regional government A: To do with governance frameworks and frameworks that have a bearing on this agenda, small part of big agenda. We need to debate it not lie back and take it. Q: Is there a conflict between the need to concentrate development within settlement to reduce mobility (and transport greenhouse gas emissions) and the need to resist densification to assist climate adaptation? A: It was to some extent. Linked to that is the big debate on the desire for concentrated urban settlements but not in a way that takes out the critical green infrastructure that provides an equable living environment and makes life worth living too. outdoor realm will be critically important as we move into C21, research shows people have a lot of personal adaptation usng open space, adapting by clothing, where to sit, how to behave, (study with Ox Brooks Uni in Mcr) people who did interviews had a portable climate weather station so they could relate the feedback to exactly what happening that day. C25 peoples prefs changed, up to then they did not hink green sa
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Pace was that important, and once you cross the threshold, they want greenery and shade. We have a programme called Eco Cities about this funded by Oglesby Trust http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/architecture/research/ecocities/ People with long term commitment to landscape National Trust, same with water authorities, which have a statutory duty to produce a climate change adaptation plan, they would have done this anyway. Bruntwood are the owner of commercial buildings, they are long term custodian of buildings and need to provide long term working environments for people. We have been working on development of an adaptation blueprint for GM as a resource available to get to grips with some of this material. We are thinking about what form it might take, web based, and interactive resource. Planning work with Creative Concern with accessible interactive (Blueprint lite), and behind it Blueprint Pro which may be of interest to you as professionals. Will also be something else a component from TCPA on the Grabs project working across Europe to develop prototype adaptation studies. We have developed a tool on how European climate might change, we are going to translate to a Greater Manchester and NW context. If we develop it ourselves it will be not very useful, so are having working lunches to work with others over the next few weeks please do look out for our invitation to work on this with us. It should be up and running by December. Q: Is anybody currently using any of the research being done by Manchester as evidence in their strategies? A: Scorchio information at Salford, not in documents yet, but influencing. JH Mainstream research programme is ARC (Adaptation and Resilience to a changing climate) Scorchio is part of that research programme Hadley Centre at Met Office, models dont take account of urban heat island and have modelled this in regional climate model. Scorchio looked at neighbourhood level and office / building scale to look at minimizing energy requirements while sustaining good living conditions. Gill Fenna, adds that those of you that are not from an urban authority dont think it does not apply to you Rossendale e.g. In a building less than 10 years old, too hot, too noisy if window was open, its an important issue. Green Infrastructure as an Adaptation Response Susannah Gill & Tom Ferguson Mersey Forest What is green infrastructure? 2008 NW Green infrastructure guide produced http://www.greeninfrastructurenw.co.uk/resources/GIguide.pdf - won an RTPI award definition that its our life support system underpinning our existence. Network of natural, semi natural and man
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made green and blue components. Provides multiple benefits, not just green space for access. To give you an idea of what it includes, (slide 4) mapping work for Liverpool city showing green infrastructure types for a section of the city traditional parks and public gardens its much more, includes, private gardens, which are a massive green resource in cities and built up areas. Cumulative issues about paving over front gardens and how private spaces are managed can have a potentially big impact on climatic function of cities. Sometimes seen as urban issue, but it is also rural weve included agricultural land and more natural green infrastructure types. Multiple benefits Natural Economy NW programme looked at a range of economic benefits green infrastructure can provide. Tourism, health, products, land and property values, labour productivity improvements More information on NENW and its output is at: www.naturaleconomynorthwest.co.uk. Also of interest is a recently developed green infrastructure valuation toolkit you can use www.bit.ly/givaluationtoolkit. e.g. it was trialled in Liverpool Knowledge Quarter where it indicated that for every 1 invested in green infrastructure you get economic benefit of 3. Green infrastructure is a critical adaptation response as you get immediate benefits and these will be in place for future health, recreation benefits etc. Report from Adaptation Sub-Committee says that the minimum expected from a society thats adapting well is that such low regrets options are implemented. Land use planning is flagged up in this report as a priority for adaptation in the UK. http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/ASC/CCC_ASC_Repor t_web_1.pdf How does green infrastructure help us adapt to climate change? (1) Too wet increase in winter precipitation, more intense rainfall, leads to increased flood risk, especially when combined with sealed urban surfaces. We can use green infrastructure to help slow down the run off rate and reduce the volume of water that gets into drains and the river system. We can use it to capture the rainwater, the tree canopy is important for interception function, annually, a conifer woodland captures up to 45% of rainfall that falls on it, a broadleaf woodland captures up to 25%. Urban areas often more well treed than rural areas urban forest. Green infrastructure helps water soak into the ground rather than run off. A modelling study in Greater Manchester found that this is especially true in green areas on faster infiltrating, sandier soils. e.g. for 18mm rainfall event, youd expect 10% of this to run off from an open green space on a sandy soil compared to 60% of it if the soil is clay. In a built up town centre the run off is 75% on a sandy soil compared to 90% for clay soil
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so its much higher for built up area. Map (slide 10) shows for Greater Manchester where there are the faster infiltrating sandier soils, and what the proportion of green infrastructure cover is in these areas if I thought about this as a planner, and reducing the rate and volume of run off was an important issue for me, then I would start to think that the green infrastructure that occurs in these areas is really important and that I should be putting policies in places to protect them and to encourage more permeable surfaces in these areas. Channels rainwater moves it from where we dont want it to where we want it. e.g. of SUDS system in Freiburg, Germany where runoff from roofs etc is directed into a swale to channel the water, it also provides a corridor and habitat for wildlife, and is combined with a walking and cycling route through the new development. (slide 11) This swale channels the water into a pond in the communal green space; this is a nice amenity feature, and is also very functional and protects development from flooding (slide 12). Such storage ponds can be permanent or temporary, to be used only during high rainfall events. In terms of river flooding, renaturalising river flood plains provides areas allowing it to flood. River Quaggy in Greenwich was de-culverted and renaturalised in order to reduce flooding in Lewisham town centre downstream, park now much more used and popular. (slide 13) (2) Too hot Helps us manage high temperatures. Here shading is obviously going to be crucial. On the day the photo was taken in Manchester, the ground surface temp in shade of tree was 13 deg cooler than in the sun. This surface temp radiates back and affects how people feel. Look at everyone crowding onto that bench (which in fact is no longer there)! (slide 15). Globe temperature is a measurement that more accurately reflects how people feel in terms of their thermal comfort. Recent work coming from Manchester Uni suggests that shade can reduce globe temperature by up to 7 degrees. Important to think about where people want to be on a hot day. Shading buildings is also very important. Studies in Chicago show trees which provide shade to buildings can reduce air conditioning costs by 46%. (slide 16) As well as shading, green infrastructure also provides evaporative cooling where the energy which would have been turned into heat is used instead by plants in the evapotranspiration process (to evaporate water into water vapour) so the air feels cooler as a result. For this to happen there needs to be a water supply for the vegetation. Modelling work here shows a high density residential area in Greater Manchester. Currently, surface temperatures are about 28 degrees on a hot day, if we take away 10% green cover the temperature goes up by
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about 3 degrees, by adding 10% green cover you can reduce the temperature by a similar amount. Adding 10% green cover in such areas will keep temperatures reasonably stable up until the end of the century thats a very attractive way of keeping temperatures lower. In Central Europe they plan cities to allow air flow into urban areas. This map of Greater Manchester shows the green corridors entering into urban form (slide 17). You can start to imagine how if we were to overlay wind flows, we could start to say which of these green corridors were really important in terms of city climate, and then start to develop planning policies to protect important spaces or to only allow specific types of development in some areas (e.g. oriented according to wind directions, of a certain height or density, etc). (3) Too dry Drought conditions green infrastructure has interesting role to play. You think this grass would provide evaporative cooling (slide 18), but as it has dried out, its thermal properties are behaving like a car park. We need to find sustainable ways to ensure that such green spaces can continue to provide evaporative cooling. e.g. capturing excessive rainwater and re use to irrigate green space it can continue to keep us cool. Can be small scale (water butt) to larger scale solutions such as in Chavasse Park in Liverpool, where a green space on the roof of a retail has an amenity value, but also captures rain water to reduce flooding, and this water is re-used for irrigation. Green infrastructure framework for action This was developed through the NW Climate Change Action Plan and GRABS project which builds upon the TCPA climate change by design guide. The framework for action is underpinned by a lot of evidence gathering, online evidence base. Framework developed through consultation aims to aid policy development and delivery to help you to do your jobs. Feedback from you would be welcome. www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange/framework It has a tiered approach from inter-authority work through to local and neighbourhood levels. The vision is that green infrastructure is well planned, designed and managed and its safeguarded and enhanced. Actions are grouped as overarching actions and then by the individual climate change services (e.g. managing high temperatures, managing surface water, etc). For each action, suggested delivery level, partners, and mechanisms are outlined. Partners include local authorities; and delivery mechanisms include LDFs, neighbourhood plans and CIL/S106/Planning conditions. Example of an overarching action encouraging people to embed it into their work. Getting hooks into LDFs will be crucial.
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There are links to case studies: e.g. community adaptation training material (www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange/training). e.g. Green Infrastrucutre toolkit www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange/gi_toolkit to use to set appropriate green infrastructure scores for new developments to reach. This is adapted from a Green Space Factor approach which was developed for the Western Harbour re-development in Malmo, Sweden (an expert paper was written on this approach as part of the GRaBS project http://www.grabseu.org/downloads/EP6%20FINAL.pdf). Rochdale are currently seeking to include it in their forthcoming climate change adaptation SPD which will be consulted on shortly. Example of an action for managing high temperatures which suggests where you may want to start trying to increase green infrastructure within built up areas. This links to a risk and vulnerability assessment tool developed by Manchester Uni www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange/assessmenttool. This allows you to overlay different layers of information to understand the risks and vulnerabilities in your area. It is a useful tool to aid a decision making process and to communicate some of the issues around adaptation. On the map you can overlay a range of inputs e.g. on slide 30 is vulnerability of people to high temperatures/heat stress. www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange - has links to a lot of the GRaBS output mentioned. Liverpool Green Infrastructure Strategy an example of trying to embed the actions into other strategies and plans. www.ginw.co.uk/liverpool Developed in 2010, joint project between planning department and PCT. The Mersey Forest undertook the work. It has five priorities, including Cool City to embed climate change. We mapped what green infrastructure was there types of green infrastructure across the city. We then overlaid the functions that the different bits of green infrastructure do by answering questions such as is it on sand (i.e. providing a water infiltration function), is it well treed (i.e. providing a shading function), etc. By overlaying these maps you can produce a multifunctionality map, that starts to show where the most functional parts of the green infrastructure are in the city (slide 36). Blue areas (slide 37/38) provide the most functional. In the urban core, hard to see because of map scale, many small areas are highly functional. You can cut them in different ways, e.g. looking at only those functions that tackle climate change. Then you can start to ask where each function is most needed e.g. on slide shows shading from the sun, and you can see the thresholds we selected to say where it is most needed which are to do with population density, long term ill, locality of schools, etc.
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From this, you can start to compare where a particular function is provided with where it is needed and policies could be formulated around this. e.g. if green infrastructure is providing a function in an area where there is also a need for that function, then that green infrastructure should be considered to be an asset, its functionality should be protected. Similarly, you can find areas where there is a need for a particular function, but it is not currently being provided opportunities could be taken here through planning to create or enhance green infrastructure to provide that particular function (e.g. plant more trees for shade). Where theres no need for a particular function, your policy may be just to try to protect the function that exists at the moment in order to be best placed to cope with future changes. This forms a useful evidence base on which planning decisions could be based. Liverpools Green Infrastructure Strategy also contains some more specific actions for a wider range of stakeholders. E.g. action 3.1 is about green infrastructure interventions to provide cooling around older people, the ill, and people who cant adapt (vulnerable people taken from heatwave action plan). (slide 39) In summary adaptation sub committee report shows green infrastructure is a low regrets option and we need to get on with it. Framework for action available to aid policy development and delivery Get it embedded in your policy and help deliver the agenda. Q: Is the methodology transferable? A: Yes, work in Liverpool now being done by Carlisle using similar methodology. Q: Can you ask for it, in planning? A: Yes, especially if you have a strategy you can explain exactly what youre trying to achieve e.g. biodiversity, flood prevention etc. A: Green space standard used in Malmo is directly transferable. A: the GI scoring in the toolkit came from Malmo, where they wanted a very strong green infrastructure approach. It assigns different factors to different surface types (e.g. open vegetated surfaces, paved surfaces, permeable paving, trees, green roofs), each is multiplied by the area it covers and summed, the total is then divided by the total area of the site to give a GI Score. So you can look across your development site and figure your score and see if it meets a pre-agreed target (this could be set in policy, as it now is in Malmo). What they found is that all the developers submitted a plan meeting the target, and in most cases when they assessed it post-development this score had been met. It improved quality of spaces in the development and are now building it into planning policies. An expert paper was written on this approach as part of the GRaBS project http://www.grabs-eu.org/downloads/EP6%20FINAL.pdf.
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On www.ginw.co.uk/climatechange/gi_toolkit you can see an example of its use in Liverpool Knowledge Quarter, for demonstration purposes. There has been other green infrastructure wotk taking place in this area where the masterplan was assessed to see how the proportion of green infrastructure cover changed from pre re-development, and also to see crucially how the functions provided by the green infrastructure change. As a result, the masterplan was revisited to try to increase the functionality adding in particular more street trees and green roofs into the re-development. This re-development has not yet taken place. Q: Was that conditioned in the planning process. A: Not sure what stage its got to. For estimating the amount of storage volume you would need on site to accommodate surface water run off there are fairly simple equations that are used by SuDS designers. John Handley (University of Manchester) mentioned a study with Sheffield University in Bradford, looking at drainage and spare climate headroom, looked at landcover change. Increased runoff was mainly due to hardening of surfaces round existing dwellings, by doing this all the climate headroom has been taken out, by loss of green infrastructure. You can build in capacity but there is wrong-direction changes such as this taking place in existing dwellings Building storage capacity back into the urban development is key, e.g. Rotterdam are building in massive under water storage because they worry so much about flooding, and want to use it as a resource. Aquifers are useful in the North, if our green space dries out it does not cool. How do we get water to irrigate the green space to provide the public cooling function we need from it? Manchester City Council have done this in Piccadilly Gardens by sinking a borehole underground, and use that to irrigate the park, a rising aquifer as a result of less industrial extraction, its not for human consumption. You can use aquifers to cool buildings, the ground water does not sit there, it flows e.g. of hotel in Freiburg sustainable hotel, in a hot city, they extract groundwater upstream, use it to cool the building and then put it back into the aquifer (2 year payback), only needs a little pumping, which is powered by a solar panel. Q: How far has the Mersey Forest itself got? I have seen planting at edge of N Merseyside. A: Its moving forward, supported by the LAs who are continuing to support the agenda, programme of tree planting. Looking at how forest is delivering social, economic and environmental projects of the city. Access to new woodlands is part of the agenda. Research with community recognises local support is there. Q: Budget cuts affecting this?
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A: Policy pushes the agenda, the implementation will vary locally some are not cut, e.g. ranger service, ultimately will be local priorities. Need to ensure there is a realisation of the importance of the agenda so it can be implemented when resources exist. We are looking in the Liverpool City Region work that we find a home for it. Rapid changing environment, question marks about how agenda is taken forward so it remains in key critical priorities. Planning for Climate Change Adaptation Gill Fenna Options for Policy & Action As a minimum, your Core Strategy needs to mention adapting to climate change (as well as mitigation) e.g. developments should be designed to be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The CS should also reference evidence such as climate projections from UKCIP, and your local evidence on flood risk, green infrastructure, air quality, biodiversity, urban heat etc. As well as the CS, Area Action Plan, Land Allocation etc Documents should include references to adaptation. Critically, adaptation should also be assessed in your Sustainability Appraisal. This provides sufficient hooks to hang more detailed guidance and planning requirements on. Its also important that planners are involved in the development of wider strategies that relate to climate change as well as using them for your evidence, so that the whole policy hangs together including transport planning, biodiversity etc. The PCCC provides a basis for good practice and recommends suitable policy wording. Then what level of guidance you provide depends somewhat on your local risks and the vulnerability of your population. There are a wide range of examples of guidance notes, so dont re-invent the wheel. Its useful to provide clear guidance on what you expect, both for yourselves and for the developers, but different authorities recommend different approaches to the level of detail you provide. One clear recommendation from LPAs that have introduced adaptation guidance is to test it out for a couple of years and get as wide a feedback as you can into the final version from DC, BC and developers. Some LPAs provide checklists for developers, such as this example from Hertfordshire. To a large extent, the onus is on developers to come up with climateresilient solutions. Your role is to ensure youre asking them to do it in the first place, and help them understand whats needed and why. We had questions earlier about what level of technical knowledge you need - you dont need to be able to design an adapted development, but
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you do need to understand whether whats proposed is what you asked for. There are resources you can use to help, such as the EA for flood risk. Implementation, this is the key bit. Its important to get a specific reference in the planning application to how this development is adapted to climate change. Weve already talked about how important working together across disciplines is, and making sure everyone involved understands why were doing it. You might also want to think about wider infrastructure projects and how you can start to place requirements on individual developments that contribute to a wider policy? Eg Can you get a Section 106 on green infrastructure or flood management system development? How do you get the infrastructure costed and included in CIL? Finally, a lot of it is covered in the Building Regulations but you must make sure these are seen as the minimum standards, and require improvements beyond these where necessary. In a way its like safety regulations peoples lives can be at risk from mal-adapted developments. Questions & Discussion: 1. To some extent, youre preaching to the converted, I am wondering how youre getting the messages across to other agencies, developers, opinion formers and decision makers and well be increasingly reliant on the private sector. Commercial property agents recognise the costs of environmental control in office buildings, but are driven by cost not green agenda. Is it going to be left up to market forces? A: This programme is FOR planning officers, but a further part will be for Members. We have started to discuss getting this out to developer as well, taking into account commercial aspects, costs, and why theyre likely to be hit by planning conditions related to adaptation and mitigation. Market mechanisms might kick in we see significant cost increases in commodities across the world when places are hit by severe weather. But market mechanisms tend to be reactive, so theyre not as good on predicted changes, and thats where the planning system comes in. A lot of work in London on adaptation is driven by finance industry. Market mechanisms could sort this out tomorrow if insurance industry and potentially the EA worked more closely. ABI policy is that if theres an outstanding objection in principle to a development from the EA, they wont recommend any insurers to insure the site, so a commercial developer wont potentially be able to insure liabilities. If the EAs final answer were No, then you wouldnt be able to get a mortgage and suddenly the debate would be unlocked. Industry would then start to build differently. 2. Last Friday, Central Lancashire held discussions with Lancs CC on green infrastructure, regeneration, public transport, extensions to waste treatments works, etc so we are starting to look at it in the round.
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3. We need to invest more resources in this the problems getting bigger and bigger and were getting smaller and smaller. A: Its really important to get the skeleton in place now in terms of policy, even if you havent the resources to deliver the actions now. 4. Having spent time 10 years ago, retrofitting flood areas in East of England and writing SPD on SUDS, its so frustrating that were discussing the same things, why has it not been driven by central government level? A: Ive been working on energy efficiency for 20 years and were now seeing quite significant changes in e.g. the building Regulations, but for years it felt like we were getting nowhere. The Adaptation agenda has lagged mitigation agenda significantly, but we are starting to see some progress. Its frustrating were not there yet. 5. Some of what John said in his introduction struck me everybody is talking about projections at a modest level, but there is potential for sea level and temperature rises to be much higher and faster - it increases the frustration of those of us who have been talking about this for years. 6. We have got to try to get this embedded in what we do, and move the onus away from yourselves into developers and community. Its not all your job, but you do have a key role.

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