Government to face High Court hearing over restrictions on green home rules

The government is facing yet another High Court hearing over a key plank of its climate strategy, after the court backed an application for a Judicial Review on plans from Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove that would restrict the ability of local authorities to introduce more energy efficiency rules for new homes.

The campaigners behind the legal action - Good Law Project and Rights Community Action - today confirmed the High Court had ruled a full hearing should proceed "on the earliest available date after 20th May".

The decision comes after the campaign groups launched a challenge questioning the legality of a Written Ministerial Statement last year from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), which limited the ability of local authorities to set their own energy efficiency standards for new housing projects.

They argue the statement was unlawful, because it ran counter to the objectives of the Climate Change Act. The case will also test if the government complied with its own Environment Act 2021, which requires new policies to be assessed for their environmental impacts.

The government's stance has faced fierce criticism from a number of councils and environmental groups. Earlier this year, a coalition of over 50 local councils and 12 campaign groups led by the Town and Country Planning Association, wrote to the government criticising the "unnecessarily draconian" restrictions imposed by the government.

The letter - which was signed by the likes of Friends of the Earth, the Good Homes Alliance, and the Campaign to Protect Rural England - urged the government to clarify the policy "by making clear that local planning authorities can adopt standards in local plans which… go beyond building regulations so long as such policy is robustly evidenced and viable".

TV presenter and campaigner, Kevin McCloud, who is backing the legal challenge, has also labelled the ministerial statement "a policy disaster".

"It makes absolute sense that local authorities should be able to impose better standards on builders and developers when it comes to delivering new housing," the Grand Designs presenter said. "But central government has put barriers in place restricting local authorities from doing anything that exceeds national policy. National policy just isn't up to scratch. And the irony is that, by limiting local authorities, central government is in effect hampering its own climate pledges."

The government's Written Ministerial Statement from DLUHC Minister Baroness Penn argued the recent strengthening of national energy efficiency standards for new homes meant more ambitious local standards were unnecessary and risked pushing up the cost of delivering new low carbon homes by creating a patchwork of different rules across the country.

The statement confirmed the government "does not expect plan-makers to set local energy efficiency standards for buildings that go beyond current or planned building regulations".

"The proliferation of multiple, local standards by local authority area can add further costs to building new homes by adding complexity and undermining economies of scale," it added, concluding that "any planning policies that propose local energy efficiency standards for buildings that go beyond current or planned buildings regulation should be rejected at examination if they do not have a well-reasoned and robustly costed rationale".

But critics argued the guidance would effectively block local authorities from introducing more ambitious standards, which would undermine the development of more sustainable homes.

"This is a policy disaster," said Rights Community Action's chief executive, Naomi Luhde-Thompson. "We know that councils in England want to plan for warm homes that are affordable to heat, but their plans are being crushed by Michael Gove. It's homeowners of new properties who will pay the price again and again for this huge mistake. Laws to protect the environment and to guard against exactly this sort of ministerial folly need to come into their own and force a change in the government's approach so that councils can plan for zero carbon places."

Jo Maugham, executive director at Good Law Project, said the government's energy efficiency standards were continuing to allow for homes to be built today "that are so poorly insulated that they will later need to be fitted with extra insulation".

"Worse still - Michael Gove has adopted a ministerial statement which has the effect of discouraging the building of homes to a sustainable standard," he said. "This will be beneficial in the short term for the huge housebuilders and developers that fund the Conservative Party - and terrible for everyone else. We think it's time to say 'enough'."

The government declined to comment on on-going legal action. But responding to the announcement of the initial legal challenge earlier this year, a government spokesperson defended the Written Ministerial Standard and highlighted how new standards are due to come into effect next year which would significantly improve the energy efficiency of news homes.

"Our policies allow more energy efficient homes to be delivered, as long as local authorities do this in a way that is easily understandable for housebuilders and does not affect the viability of new housing," they said. "We are improving the efficiency of homes with our Future Homes Standard, which will deliver the new homes needed for a net zero future."

The news comes just days after separate legal action challenging the legality of the government's climate adaptation plan received confirmation it could similarly proceed to a High Court hearing.

Campaigners and Ministers are also awaiting the results of a hearing earlier this year, which questioned whether the government's decarbonisation plans lacked sufficient detail and ambition and as such were in breach of the Climate Change Act.

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