Rochdale Borough Draft Local Plan Consultation
Chapter 6: A Sustainable and Resilient Place
The following policies are part of the Sustainable and Resilient Place Chapter. All policies within this chapter are provided below and we welome your opinions and comments. Please ensure you comment within the correct text box:
- Policy S1 - Sustainable and Energy Efficient Development
- Policy S2 - Climate Resilience
- Policy S3 - Renewable and Low Carbon Energy Infrastructure
- Policy S4 - Managing water resources and flood risk
- Policy S5 - Reducing the impact of pollution, contamination and land instability
Once you have completed your response please scroll to the bottom and click continue.
Introduction
The purpose of the planning system continues to be to deliver sustainable development (NPPF, 2024), with the three overarching objectives – economic, social and environmental. Delivering economic, social and environmental benefits together, in a mutually reinforcing way, is central to this Plan and will contribute to tackling climate change and moving to a low carbon economy, whilst delivering resilient growth.
Rochdale Borough Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and taking action on climate change is a key corporate priority. As part of the Greater Manchester city-region, the Council is working towards being carbon neutral by 2038, proposing to go faster than the national 2050 target. As such it is important that new development is sustainable and of a sufficient standard to support our emissions targets.
Communities in Rochdale are already experiencing the effects of climate change, with hotter, drier summers and milder, wetter winters, as well as an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. No matter what steps are taken to mitigate CO2 emissions in the future, these effects are likely to continue in the coming decades, with the impact of mitigation measures being apparent in the long term. Therefore, climate change mitigation and adaptation must be tackled in parallel. Developing climate resilience is increasingly seen as the necessary response to this issue, by increasing the capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of hazardous climatic events while incurring minimal damage to societal wellbeing, the economy and the environment. Climate adaptation can increase our resilience to climate change. This is not an alternative strategy reducing greenhouse gas emissions but a complementary and necessary one