Renew On Line (UK) 31

Extracts from the May-June 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

Renewable Planning

Last Dec., Nick Raynsford MP gave a presentation to PRASEG, the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, on ‘how the new regional planning targets will help us achieve the Government’s targets of 5% electricity generation from renewables by 2003 and 10% by 2010’. He argued that, ‘the planning system is not about stopping things happening, but about making them happen in a sustainable way’. In particular, ‘it provides a framework for balancing economic, social and environmental considerations and resolving competing demands’. This was, he said, crucial for renewables.

Currently the main national planning policy guidance on renewable energy is the DETR’s Planning Policy Guidance note PPG22. This, he said, makes it clear that ‘in formulating their development plans, and in making decisions on specific renewable energy projects, local planning authorities need to consider both the immediate impact on the local environment and the wider contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They need to weigh national policy on renewable energy with the impact on local amenity’. In addition, he said, the DETR’s guide on Planning for Sustainable Development ‘underlines the importance of renewable energy and the need to develop strategies at regional and local levels for the provision of renewable energy development.’ And in March last year the DETR announced measures to ensure ‘a more positive strategic approach to planning for renewable energy from regional level downwards’.

As a result, he said, the Government Offices for the Regions throughout England have set in hand a process of preparing regional assessments and targets for renewable energy provision in their regions. The intention was that the targets feed into the Regional Sustainable Development Frameworks currently being developed: ‘these frameworks will help to set the context for the preparation of the Regional Development Agency strategies and Regional Planning Guidance. That in turn should feed through to development plans and to consideration of individual proposals for renewable energy development.’

He noted that PPG11, on regional planning, issued last Oct., describes the role of Regional Policy Guidance (RPG) in this context as ‘helping the delivery of regional targets by defining broad locations for renewable energy development and setting criteria to help local planning authorities to select suitable sites in their development plans’. It also said that, where sensible to do so, RPG should ‘set targets for structure and unitary development plan areas, consistent with the overall target for the region’, and, overall, it suggested that ‘more positive planning at regional and local levels will contribute to greater public familiarity with, and acceptance of, prospective renewable energy developments’. Raynsford saw this as implying a ‘bottom up’, rather than ‘top down’ approach: ‘we made it clear early on that individual regional targets should flow from assessments of each region’s capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources rather than represent a simple translation to regional level of the national figure’.

Although he said it was too soon to draw firm conclusions about the outcome and to assess the overall contribution to the national 10% renewables target, he was able to quote early tentative results from one regional study in the North East. A consultants report had suggested that 5-9% of the total potential installed capacity in the region might be based on renewables- wind, biomass, solar PV, hydro power and energy from waste technologies.

To help deliver the proposed targets in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive way, the consultants’ report had, he said, offered some guidance designed to provide greater certainty about where, in general terms, different types and sizes of renewable energy development should and should not be sited, recommending that ‘the targets and broad areas of search proposed should be incorporated into the emerging Regional Planning Guidance for the NE subject to their adoption by the Regional Sustainable Development Framework’.

Raynsford noted that ‘the draft RPG prepared earlier already included some recommendations for development plan policies on RPG. These will need to be revisited following the Public Examination and Panel Report’, which amongst other things, recommended that ‘there should be general encouragement to renewable energy developments in both urban and rural locations, provided that they are of a type and size appropriate to the scale and character of the surrounding environment. For example, small-scale developments, such as photovoltaics, active solar panels and single wind turbines of an appropriate scale are considered to be compatible with the character of small settlements and remote rural areas, including National Parks and AONB’s’.

Public Participation

Raynsford was well aware that ‘a vital factor in delivering on renewable energy is increasing public acceptance of the development needed’ and he reported ‘we have made clear the importance of involving a wide range of stakeholders in developing regional assessments and targets’.

Similarly, he noted that ‘the new arrangements for preparing Regional Planning Guidance are designed to promote a more participative and inclusive approach and to ensure greater regional ownership of the product’.

However he also felt that ‘it remains essential for developers to prepare the ground by engaging in dialogue with local authorities and local communities. Developers need to persuade people of the benefits of schemes, not appear to be imposing them on local communities. They need to involve and explain their proposals to all the interests involved or represented in the decision-making process, including local councillors, so that everyone understands the issues. The investment of time and effort early on should yield benefits later and help to smooth the passage of projects through the planning system’.

Overall, although he recognised that reaching the 10% target would not be easy, he was surprisingly optimistic about the fate of renewables applications in the planning system. Looking back at the the full range of projects contracted under the NFFO arrangements for England and Wales since 1990, he noted that, as at Feb.00 ‘of the 385 projects which had entered the planning arena, some 89% of those then determined had been approved, either initially or on appeal. Another 60 did not need express permission at all by virtue of permitted development rights’. The results were similar in Scotland and N. Ireland. So, he concluded, overall, ‘it was an encouraging picture, but with variation in the success rate of particular types of renewables development, with landfill gas (for example) encountering little difficulty and windfarm proposals generally facing greater resistance’.

With the majority of recent wind projects being turned down, that was perhaps something of an understatement!

* Consultation on and participation in setting regional plans and targets is obviously a good idea, but so too is the more local grass roots approach pioneered by AAT in Wales- the good news being that a local referendum has just backed the wind co-op proposed there- by 57% to 42%. See Groups.