Considering the Welsh and UK governments international legal obligations to reduce carbon emissions -to say nothing about the pressing material need for widespread adoption of low carbon technologies on which these commitments are based- it has always struck me as odd that the normal permitted development rights for the installation of an air source heat pump in Wales do not apply in cases where the heat pump is installed within 3 metres of the property boundary, considering that 400,000 out of 1,400,000 households own Wales are terraced properties, and for virtual all of those therefore a planning application is required. What does permitted develop even mean, when roughly a third of all households do not in fact have such a development right?
Within the context of a legally binding commitment made by our political leaders in Paris nearly 10 years ago to take measures to keep global warming within 2C of baseline, the international community’s failure already to contain temperature rises to 1.5C, with all the epiphenomena, locally and worldwide, that that entails; with gas prices dependent on continued Russian goodwill, and only ever going up steeply, or incredibly steeply, whilst householders income is getting squeezed, is not the approximately 20 page planning permission application form (a preliminary one), with all the off-putting hassle and rigmarole that entails, to say nothing of the £250 fee, BS crazy?
There were 32+ million environmental refugees in 2022 alone. Estimates up to 2050 are for 1 billion. We’ve all seen the devastating forest fires in Los Angeles and the terrific hurricanes in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico this last year. But there´s also been immense flooding in Wales -which has not been without ´wildfires´itself the past 12 months- and sadly a great many people have been affected and a great deal of damage caused.
Notionally, the requirement for planning permission for heatpumps is because of the noise they can make. Frankly, if catastrophic climate change wasn´t already unfolding in its own, dreadful way, and if energy costs weren’t soaring whilst income stagnated, this would still be a pathetic justification for complicating -and increasing the cost of- getting an energy, carbon, and moneysaving home improvement fitted; something guaranteed to make you better off from the moment its turned on. But the noise really is minimal, and the units are outside and running mostly in winter, when the windows are shut and are unlikely to bother anybody. And let’s be fair, you dont need planning permission for a vacuum cleaner or a TV, though these are significantly louder.
The government in Westminster, despite its claims and lofty rhetoric, is in most instances, less ambitious regarding energy and environmental issues than the Sendedd. So it should be of great embarrassment to the assembly that the rule pertaining to heatpumps and the required distance from a boundary is a far more sensible 1m, than the 3m rule in Wales. Why would you pass a law that benefits fossil fuel companies and foreign governments to the detriment of the bill paying houeholder and the planet? England has about half as many terrace properties as a percentage than Wales does, so this really makes no sense.
Ecotekk wrote to the Minister about this matter over a year ago. Though we had a seemingly positive response detailing how the Minister planned to ´look into the issue´, a year later its apparent that was little more than lip-service, and this crazy, unnecessary hindrance to people adopting this fantastic -though far from new -technology will likely remain for the time being. But with an interim target for 580,00 heatpump installations in Wales by 2035 (equating to about 60 % of all households for which a planning permission application fee was not required), and so far a whopping total 15,000 or so actually completed, we would suggest that is not possible for the WAG to meet its target without scrapping the 3m rule, and so seeing as they will have to bring it in line with the 1m requirement in England sooner rather than later, well it might as well sooner.
The exorbitant £250 fee, needs to go also. Every possible barrier to take up of low carbon energy must be removed. It is not right and not moral to charge the same fee to a fuel poor household the same planning fee as someone just wanting to live in a bigger, more valuable house.
Ecotekk
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