Have you ever wondered why new built homes don’t have solar panels on them as a matter of course? Or, why rain water isn’t collected from more roofs?
The answer is that right now developers don’t have to do these things because they are not required to by the planners. If you want to change this, you now have a chance as the Mayor of London is asking for our help in reformulating London’s environmental strategy.
With London currently facing a range of environmental challenges posing a significant risk to the health and well being of Londoners, urgent action needs to be taken to safeguard those who live in and visit the city.
The Mayor is taking a range of actions to improve the environment now, and, on 11th August 2017, published his first draft London Environment Strategy, setting London on the path to create a better future. This is the first strategy to bring together approaches to every aspect of London’s environment. It is divided into the following areas:
Air quality
Green infrastructure
Climate change mitigation and energy
Waste
Adapting to climate change
Ambient noise
To give you some points to consider, Sustainable Merton has listed 10 key issues that our members have raised in the last few years which are included in the draft London Environment Strategy:
Planning
Energy
All new builds in London to have solar panels installed
All major new builds (100 units or more) to benefit from CHP, Combined heat and power
All developments built over tube lines to harvest waste heat from the tube network.
Air Quality
All new applications to take air quality into consideration.
Water
All new builds to install rainwater harvesting.
Bio-diversity
All developers required to replace lost trees at a ratio of 3 to 1.
Waste
London to aim at zero waste status by 2025.
All supermarkets to copy Tesco in removing all single use bags from their outlets.
All supermarkets to recycle unsold food through Fareshare and like organizations.
Air quality
The ULEZ to be extended to all London boroughs.
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