A new report, Bricks and Water, which iCASP helped to inform, has been published by the Westminster Sustainable Business Forum, an off shoot of Policy Connect.
It sets out an action plan for better management of water to deliver water-efficient homes at volume, that are resilient to flooding and calls for a ‘Bricks and Water’ sustainability code with a change in building regulations to provide a stable long-term planning framework.
Of particular interest to iCASP, the report (downloadable from the thumbnail on the right) highlights the relevance to housing of addressing upstream water management issues for improving water quality and quantity and reducing flood risk. It suggests this should be brought up the agenda when considering public money for public goods, in the government’s introduction of a post-CAP framework.
The report also recognises Green infrastructure such as Sustainable Urban Drainage (SuDS) as a nationally important asset. It recommends a register of SuDS to drive at-scale decisions including retrofit.
This publication is the result of a year long inquiry co-chaired by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, Conservative Peer and former Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, and Angela Smith MP, Labour Member of Parliament for Penistone and Stocksbridge and former Shadow Water Minister who referred to it in her talk at the iCASP Confluence18.