RSUA Climate Emergency Committee update
6 November 2024
The RSUA Climate Emergency Committee met in the RSUA office today.
At the last meeting it was agreed that the Committee would discuss RSUA’s position on biodiversity net gain. The Committee agreed in principle that the RSUA should be calling for a biodiversity net gain policy for Northern Ireland, similar to that in England, but had the following comments:
- Only at large scale, not for small projects
- We need to find out what impact it has on planning applications
- Planning needs an overhaul
- No requirement for a consultee report at planning stage but a tick box
- Large developers in England are finding loopholes so that they get the credits
It was agreed that RSUA should host a Biodiversity Net Gain event for all members and invite someone who has experience working on large projects in England to talk about how it works operationally.
The retrofit guidance sub-group have compiled a list of retrofit guidance documents. This list will be shared with all RSUA members before the end of this year, and members will be asked to provide feedback.
A small group of committee members will be formed to draft a response to the DfE consultation on support for low carbon heating in residential buildings, the closing date for which is 31 December 2024. Martin Marshall, Alan Ritchie, Ben James and Maeve Gorman put their names forward to join a subgroup to respond to this consultation. All other committee members will be invited to join the subgroup, specifically those who haven’t worked on a consultation before and/or who have developer clients. If you are interested in joining this subgroup, please get in touch with Jude on jude@rsua.org.uk.
Ciarán Fox reported that RSUA will host a conference in April 2025, with the focus to be on existing buildings. A working group of members from across all committees should be established to provide input into the conference for 2025. The first meeting of the group is to take place before the end of the year. If you are interested in joining this subgroup, please get in touch with Jude on jude@rsua.org.uk.