Land South of Charfield

The Commercial Estates Group (CEG) is proposing a new community to the south west of Charfield in Gloucestershire. The proposals will deliver new community facilities alongside homes and a mix of parks, play areas and green spaces.

Envision prepared a sustainability and energy statement in support of CEG’s proposals, to demonstrate how the evolving masterplan has encompassed sustainability principles, and how these principles will be delivered with future reserved matters applications.

Charfield is one of a handful of locations in South Gloucestershire identified as being a suitable and sustainable location for strategic growth. The statement applied sustainability appraisal approaches to demonstrate how the scheme could align with the strategic policy objectives for the site.

Our work identified how the scheme was able to respond to key issues, including:

• High Quality Design
• Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
• Renewable and Low Carbon Energy Generation
• Low Carbon District Heat Networks
• Improving Accessibility
• Managing the Environment and Heritage

The statement also included an outline energy assessment, prepared using a combination of benchmark data and Envision’s validated datasets, to demonstrate how the scheme could reduce CO₂ emissions beyond the minimum policy requirement of 20%, via the use of renewable and/or low carbon energy generation sources. The objective of the assessment ensured that any solutions brought forward remained flexible, establishing the principles to be developed and adopted through reserved matters stages.

An important objective for CEG was to achieve high sustainability standards in line with the policy aspirations. As part of this, the scheme proposes:

• Energy efficient buildings to meet relevant carbon reduction/renewable energy requirements and to assist in addressing the climate emergency.
• Use renewable energy which will achieve almost 40% reduction in CO₂ (policy requires 20%). The scheme proposes Individual Air-Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs) which provide efficient space and water heating to each dwelling alongside heating and cooling to non-domestic uses and solar photovoltaics (PVs) on the roofs of houses.
• Retaining and planting new trees and achieving bio-diversity net-gain.

The reserved matters planning process will ensure that the design, orientation and location of buildings, roof pitches, windows, habitable rooms, lighting and soft landscaping help to achieve energy conservation, the protection of environmental resources and assist the appropriate siting of renewable and/or low carbon energy installations and infrastructure.