Our campaign goals

The cost of living and climate crises make energy efficiency more urgent than ever before. By law, the UK is committed to bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

With residential buildings accounting for over a third of carbon emissions, planning regulations are preventing landlords, tenants and residents from radically reducing their energy bills and their carbon footprint.

Drawing on best practice from around the country, we aim for Islington to provide a model of reform for councils working together with local communities to drive demand for Net Zero goods and services.

And while councils such as Kensington & Chelsea have demonstrated that planning can be changed for the better, the low uptake of their approach shows that awareness remains low and residents require guidance on what to install and whom to trust to do the work.

Grassroots groups like ours can help galvanise resident engagement and spread the word about the benefits and feasibility of energy upgrades.

As it drafts a net zero Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) this spring, we are calling on Islington Council to do three things:

Give real weight to sustainability alongside conservation.
Currently, planning decisions are driven by aesthetic criteria. The extensive research by our fellow campaigners the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) shows that huge energy gains can be achieved in historic homes while enhancing their appearance. Half of Islington’s homes are under conservation, and thousands of them are listed. Unless they can be appropriately upgraded, Islington will fail in its ambition to achieve net zero by 2030.

Make clear upfront what WILL be approved.
The current planning system is a lottery - individual planning officers make arbitrary decisions on applications that are hard and costly to make. We are calling for a publicly available pattern library providing clarity and guidance on what can be done to the main types of homes in the borough – including which windows can be replaced with double glazing, where to place solar panels etc. Transparency will make the planning process predictable and consistent and encourage more home owners to invest in upgrading their homes. With resources stretched like never before, councils do not have a monopoly on technical knowledge nor the staff to apply current planning regulations at scale. 

Keep involving local residents, architects and other experts in decision-making.
Islington Council endorsed our recommendations in a formal vote in July 2023. Yet progress in developing the new rules has been painfully slow. We urge the Council to engage far more positively with the multiple offers of free technical help from local architects, engineers and local residents.

For example, Islington’s Local Plan published in December 2023 requires all new refurbishments and extensions to meet ‘BREEAM’ standards or an equivalent alternative. While exacting BREEAM standards are appropriate to large-scale projects, they are disproportionately complex and costly for small home refurbishments including retrofits. Our fellow campaigner Robert Milne has developed an alternative in the form of a user-friendly questionnaire that homeowners themselves could fill in.

On June 18th 2024, we invited four councils with different approaches to the retrofit of listed and conservation homes - Westminster, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, and Bath & North East Somerset - to meet and discuss how to reform planning rules to facilitate and scale up the retrofit of such homes. You can read or download the full report here.