Regional Sustainability Checklist for Developments

The North East Assembly led on the production of the Regional Sustainability Checklist for developments.

The project was developed by WWF and the Buildings Research Establishment and was guided by the NEA, GONE, Environment Agency and local authorities. The toolkit was piloted with developers and local authorities before being launched as a web-based tool.

Key regional strategies, including the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS), were considered in the development of the tool to ensure that it was relevant to the issues faced by the region and the policies that aim to address these issues.

The checklist has a number of categories including climate change, energy, business, resource use, transport and use of land. It demonstrates the overall sustainability of a proposed development at the earliest stage and will allow developers to identify where improvements can be made to an application.

Planning officers will be able to assess the benefits of a development and make recommendations for change.