4.7B Planning policies and stuff

• UK Planning policies:

  • Greenbelt land, which surrounds most larger cities, cannot be built on.
  • It is protected green space, usually farmland. Conservation areas like National Parks have strict planning regulations that limit the development of all but small-scale residential and commercial schemes. 
  • Planning permission is often dependent on a scheme including 'planning gain' in other words a scheme for new private homes might be given permission if it includes a certain percentage of affordable homes
• Fracking = crack into the ground to extract gas, oil and petroleum
• Benefits of fracking:

  • Gas is a cheaper source of energy.
  • natural gas produces less C02 then coal based power stations.
  • less relying on foreign countries for energy.
• Negatives for fracking:

  • Pollution
  • contamination
• UK housing market:

  • There was a shortage of about 500,000 new homes by 2016.
  • 240,000 homes need to be built each year to meet current demand.
  • For the last ten years, only 100,000-150,000 new homes have been built each year. 
• • The UK government is a key player in making decisions about regeneration:
  • Their domestic policies influence regeneration through:
  • Planning laws and restrictions
  • House building targets
  • Housing affordability programmes
  • Granting permissions for ‘fracking’ 
• Fracking

  • In 2015, a new fast-track system was introduced to speed up licence applications for fracking
  • Many of the UK regions that have been granted fracking licences are located in either rural areas or deindustrialised areas, and would benefit from regeneration
  • Fracking is helpful for local economies as it generates jobs at the shale gas companies
  • Other sectors then benefit, such as construction, hospitality, engineering
• • Fracking causes considerable conflict over its environmental consequences:
  • Small earthquakes can be experienced at the drilling sites
  • One earth tremor lasted 100 hours
  • Fracking requires huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the site
  • Contamination of groundwater
  • Increased methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide