Central Lincolnshire: addressing climate change through placemaking

In 2018, young people around the globe commenced weekly climate strikes calling for urgent action, with strikes held across 3500 locations worldwide, including Exeter, London, Leeds and Bristol. Since then, over 300 councils¹ have declared a climate emergency in England and are urgently finding ways to reach their target for net zero in the coming years. In this article, we have explored how Central Lincolnshire prepared its new Local Plan with climate change at its core despite numerous design and implementation challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Central Lincolnshire covers the City of Lincoln, North Kesteven District and West Lindsey District, with a combined population of 290,500. Local authorities are often criticised for working in siloes; however, the City Council, two District Councils, and Lincolnshire County Council have a long history of working across boundaries. In 2009, a Joint Committee was established with representatives from the four authorities and full decision-making powers on planning policy. At the officer level, the Local Plans Team led collaboration, supported by a Heads of Planning Group, who pulled in expertise from their respective teams at the districts and county council.

In the summer of 2019, work started on the new Central Lincolnshire Local Plan. Given two of the Central Lincolnshire local authorities had declared a climate emergency, climate change was going to be a key consideration. It would form a core part of the Local Plan.

The Greater London Assembly has required zero carbon emissions from new buildings in London since 2019 and this was reiterated by the London Plan, adopted in 2021. However, the London Plan policy applied only to regulated carbon (the emissions from and energy used to heat and light buildings). It didn’t include unregulated carbon (the emissions from and energy used by appliances or devices in buildings).

Central Lincolnshire’s Local Plan (policy S6) requires net zero carbon both for heat supply and renewable energy generation, specifying that buildings must generate at least the same amount of renewable energy on-site as the electricity they demand, including all energy use, regulated and unregulated.

Along with Cornwall, and Bath and North East Somerset Councils, Central Lincolnshire is now one of three Planning Authorities who have stepped up to go above and beyond government legislation with their local policies on design, energy efficiency and climate change. In adopting these Local Plans, the Planning Inspectorate has supported this approach, which should embolden and empower other authorities to follow suit.

The next step will be for Local Plans to set policies relating not just to regulated and unregulated carbon but also to embodied carbon - that is, carbon emissions generated through the whole lifecycle of a building, including construction and demolition. Central Lincolnshire’s Local Plan (policy S11) takes an important first step towards this, requiring development to take opportunities to reduce embodied carbon where practical and viable. Although this policy doesn’t contain a specific target, it does provide a starting point to build upon in a future Plan review or through supplementary policy documents.

Elected members' leadership was crucial to achieving this ambitious policy agenda. Members were actively engaged from the start, with the Joint Committee participating in an early workshop where they considered which of their priorities were within the scope of planning and how to balance these against other critical issues in Central Lincolnshire.

An issues and options paper in the summer of 2019 was followed by a Regulation 18 consultation in 2021 and a Regulation 19 consultation in 2022. Where responses were submitted in relation to the climate change policies, these often contained little resistance or objection, further encouraging the team and giving them the confidence they were on the right track. However, the building industry did highlight a number of concerns about what the policies would mean in practice.

Phil Hylton, Local Plans Manager at the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan team, explains that collaboration between officers and members was vital.

Building trust between the four Authorities at the political level from the start helped to reach consensus regarding more contentious policies, such as the location of new renewable energy infrastructure.

It is apparent from speaking to Phil that the team has worked hard to develop a culture of trust and empathy. Strong working relationships were key in successfully delivering a Local Plan despite COVID-19 creating new challenges. “We already had the technology we needed to work in an agile way, but the pandemic put everyone in isolated pockets, and we had to change how we operated so that everyone felt connected and no one felt alone”, Phil recalls.

During the pandemic, the team moved to twice-weekly meetings, giving everyone space to talk about work and how they were coping. They recognised the need to adapt to different working patterns and be sensitive to various caring responsibilities. Integrating new staff members remotely was difficult, and the team has learnt how crucial in-person working can be to provide support and mentoring.

Phil also acknowledged the role of experts with specialist knowledge in giving officers and members the confidence to forge ahead. The strong evidence base, drawn from both in-house specialists and external consultants, gave credence to the policy proposals officers put forward to the Joint Committee.

To assemble this evidence base, Central Lincolnshire used an innovative spatial carbon mapping tool developed by the sustainability consultancy Bioregional, which worked with the planning authority alongside specialists Etude, Currie & Brown, and Mode Transport.

Ronan Leyden, Director of Consultancy at Bioregional, praised the approach of Phil and his team to procuring technical expertise, putting projects out to open competitive tender rather than appointing via a framework which meant reaching smaller businesses with deep specialisms who could assemble a team of the best experts.

Ronan also commended the structures and ways of working established in Central Lincolnshire.

Fast forward to 2023, and the team has retained many of the flexible and inclusive approaches established during the pandemic, further developing trust and strong working relationships.

When asked what was particularly innovative about your work that you think other public sector placemakers should know? Phil was keen to highlight the success story of Central Lincolnshire’s cross-boundary working.

In a context where net expenditure in planning has fallen by about 43%² between 2009/10 and 2020/21, 75%³ of local plans are going to be out of date by 2025, and 78%⁴ of authorities are struggling to attract the right placemaking skills in-house, Central Lincolnshire has shown us how despite cuts to funding and resources, it is possible and mutually beneficial to work across districts. Sharing expertise and resources can result in a more efficient and robust process. Crucially, building relationships, developing trust, and making space for different conversations resulted in a pioneering Plan that all those working and living in Central Lincolnshire can be proud of.