BRE BR436 PDF

Purpose of the checklist

This checklist is designed to be used by those involved in planning or building sizeable developments from estates to urban villages and regeneration projects. It helps at the detailed estate/site level, focussing on the sustainability aspects relating to buildings and infrastructure. Using it will:

• increase awareness amongst urban planners, developers and estate managers of the practical measures that can be taken to plan ‘sustainability' into a development,

• provide a framework for assessing the sustainability issues relating to buildings and infrastructure,

• give guidance on standards and indicators,

• be capable of adaptation to the local circumstances,

• provide developers with a method of demonstrating to planning authorities that sustainability has been systematically addressed in their proposals,

• help planners to specify ‘sustainability' in supplementary planning guidance/development codes, etc.,

• provide planners with a method of assessing the sustainability aspects of development proposals consistent with DTLR requirements.

When considering the ‘sustainability' of a whole area or community (rather than the impacts of individual buildings), social and economic issues, crucial to the vitality of a community, need to be included alongside environmental issues. Social and economic problems vary greatly from area to area as do the answers to these problems. This checklist is presented as a significant first step to help assess all three of these factors in proposed developments.