Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Deferred
Incorporate explicit humidity level messaging into Met Office and UKHSA weather forecasts and heat alerts.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Met Office and UKHSA incorporate explicit messaging and/ or metrics regarding the effects of humidity levels as well as temperature into weather forecasts and heat-health alerts. (Paragraph 20) The urban heat island effect and nature-based solutions
Government Response Summary
The government discusses its recognition of green infrastructure benefits, responsibility of local authorities for urban green spaces, and keeping green roof incentives under review, without addressing the recommendation for explicit humidity messaging in weather forecasts.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The government recognises that well-designed and managed green infrastructure provides multiple benefits at a range of scales, as the Committee has outlined. We welcome the Committee’s acknowledgement of the utility of the Green Infrastructure Framework. As the Committee highlights, this will be most useful (and, indeed, was deliberately designed) for planning authorities and developers when they are bringing forward new proposals – either through the local plan or through individual planning applications. This should mean, over the years ahead, that further progress is made. The Committee also recommends that the Government take action to expand urban green space. The primary responsibility for urban planning in individual areas sits with local authorities and it is for them to plan, design and execute new proposals for expanding specific green areas, respecting the devolution settlement that we have in place with local government. The Government has in the past offered taxpayer subsidy to support this including, in 2022, launching the £9M Levelling Up Parks Fund (LUPF) to improve access to green spaces in disadvantaged neighbourhoods across the UK. Grants have been given to, and administered by, 85 eligible local authorities, to deliver new or improved green spaces in over 100 of the neighbourhoods most deprived of green space across the UK. Data from Natural England and Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been used to determine the eligible places by identifying the neighbourhoods where high deprivation coincides with poor green infrastructure. With regards to the Green Infrastructure Framework, the Government has not chosen to mandate this at this time – it is important that we allow local authorities the space to develop their own policies and, from a first principles perspective, Government should not mandate everything. We would expect local authorities to develop plans to improve green spaces in their area and, should they not, we would hope that voters would indicate their displeasure at the ballot box. With regards to potential measures to incentivise green roofs, the Government keeps its use of taxpayer subsidy under constant review and will continue to do so.