Sir – Oxford City Council is preparing a sites and housing development plan and are asking the public for help. The council expects this plan to not only decide where new housing should go, but to get into the detail of quotas of affordable and keyworker housing.

Notwithstanding disputes about the definitions of key worker housing (Report, June 16) this is familiar territory. What should be new, is the need to reassess the very nature of housing if new residential development will avoid adding to carbon emissions which, as a whole, have to reduce by over 80 per cent by 2050. Decentralisation Minister Greg Clarke recently addressed a planning conference saying that: “If I look at the planning profession, I sometimes think it has been slow to see change coming, and indeed has almost been taken by surprise by it, rather than anticipating and shaping that change.

“In other words, paradoxically, it hasn’t always been in this respect that good at planning.

“Too often it has been commenting on others’ proposals rather than seizing the initiative and shaping the change itself”.

The Minister is expressing reasonable doubts about trusting a profession to sort out a mess of its own making.

To be serious about climate change the city housing plan must require all new schemes to demonstrate how they will meet the Government target of zero carbon.

It is unlikely that this standard could be achieved by conventional designs or lifestyles.

The alternative of co-housing, has the advantages of affordability and efficient use of materials and energy by minimising the scale of new buildings, sharing building and outdoor space for work, recreation, fruit, vegetables (and livestock), sharing cars and pets, books, games, skills, hobbies and, importantly, care of children and the elderly. Energy-efficient designs would be compatible with the residents’ ethos of minimising environmental impacts.

Daniel Scharf, Tutor in Town and Country Planning, Oxford University Department of Continuing Education