Planning & Infrastructure Bill: 2nd Reading
Rights Community Action, UK Green Building Council, Friends of the Earth, the Town and Country Planning Association and the Centre for Sustainable Energy sent the following letter to all MPs in advance of the Second Reading of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill on 24th March 2025.
The planning system is a vital tool in tackling the climate crisis. It's crucial to every decision made. From renewable energy, to ensuring new houses and buildings are energy efficient, sustainably located and resilient to extreme flood risk and heat stress, to also enabling the sustainable retrofit of existing buildings. Planning offers people a powerful platform to articulate a real vision of what a resilient net zero future can look like, and a means to play an active role in addressing the existential threat of climate change.
The current Government has failed to use planning system to work on the greatest challenge facing our society, one that is fundamental to creating a stable and growing economy now and in the future.
One of the greatest strategic failures of our postwar history is not putting climate change and the protection of nature at the heart of public policy. It ignores the opportunities for energy efficiency and modernisation, drives economic insecurity and leaves communities exposed to a dangerous – but avoidable - future.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill must be amended to deliver a sustainable future – the current provisions lessen local democracy and accountability, remove public rights to 'have a say', and fail to make climate change targets matter in decisions and plans.
Yours sincerely,
Naomi Luhde-Thompson, Executive Director, Rights Community Action
Joanne Wheeler, Co-Head of Policy and Places at The UK Green Building Council
Mike Childs, Head of Science, Policy and Research, Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Hugh Ellis, Director of Policy, Town and Country Planning Association
Dan Stone, Policy and Influencing Officer, Centre for Sustainable Energy
