PETER ELLIS
Town Planner, Member of TCPA Policy Council, RTPI England Policy Panel, and Trustee of CSE
Peter is a professional town planner who has spent much of his career working for central government. For over seven years, he was Deputy Head of the Infrastructure and Environment Division in the DCLG’s (now MHCLG) Planning Directorate, responsible for planning and environmental policy including climate change. Earlier in his Whitehall career, he worked on a broad range of planning policy including housing, design and waste management. He also has hands-on planning experience having worked in local government and for a national house builder. Since leaving central government, Peter has freelanced (part-time) including for the Right to Build Task Force.
Peter has had a long interest in planning and climate change. In Whitehall, he led on the first national planning policy statement on climate change and played a major role in developing the, then, Labour government’s zero-carbon housing policy.
Since leaving the department, Peter has continued to work on climate and planning issues in advisory roles. These have included TCPA research looking at the climate content of local plans, a joint TCPA / RTPI good practice guide on climate change and research on Planning for a Smart Energy Future. As well as being on the TCPA’s Policy Council and the RTPI’s England Policy Panel, Peter is a trustee of CSE (an energy charity based in his home town, Bristol) and has been instrumental in a number of CSE’s contributions on planning issues.
Abstract
In 2007, in England’s first dedicated national planning policy for climate change, the UK government said tackling climate change was a key priority for the planning system. Yet at the end of last year, in its most recent advice to government, the UK’s statutory Climate Change Committee said national planning policy and guidance weren’t helping to deliver developments fit for the future. Peter will probe why this is the case. And against the backdrop of the Randerson Report and the NZ Climate Change Commission’s draft advice in January, he will draw out the wider lessons that can be drawn from a decade of lost opportunity
