Angus Walker's Planning Blog

The Planning Act 2008 is one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting major infrastructure projects for many years. The same new procedure will be available for the third runway at Heathrow Airport, new nuclear power stations and windfarms being planned around the English and Welsh coast, the next high speed railway north from London, and many more high-profile projects.

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All entries beyond this date are contained in the blog section, available via the following link: Local Government Lawyer Blogs

222: Sir Mike Pitt to become Chief Executive of Planning Inspectorate

10th March 2011

Today's (second) entry reports on further announcements about the merger of the IPC and the Planning Inspectorate.

In a surprise move, Greg Clark MP, decentralisation minister, has announced that Sir Michael Pitt, currently Chair of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), will become Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) on 1 April 2011, when the current incumbent Katrine Sporle, recently awarded a CBE, retires.  The full written statement is here.

He will remain Chair of the IPC, until that is abolished, likely to be on 1 April 2012.  His contract at PINS will be timed to end at the same time as his IPC contract, namely 30 April 2014.  He currently works four days a week and will increase his hours.  I imagine he will split his time equally rather than only taking one day a week to run PINS.

Transitional arrangements

Greg Clark has also announced that all current IPC Commissioners will stay in post under the new arrangements until at least September 2014.  This will no doubt be of some relief to them.

Despite the establishment of a Major Infrastructure Planning Unit within PINS, it looks like Commissioners and planning Inspectors will become interchangeable after all.  Greg Clark said "[The IPC Commissioners] will form part of a single group of professionals that will work across the whole range of applications and appeal casework that the Planning Inspectorate will consider".  By the sound of it, then, the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (MIPU) will just refer to officers rather than examiners of applications.

Greg Clark also announced that the same individuals would continue to consider live applications at the time of transition: "I can confirm that major infrastructure applications in progress at the point of transition will be handled by the same individuals and that they will not be subject to any delay"

Funny that, because he said last week in rejecting my amendment to the Localism Bill seeking the same effect: "To require in statute the same person to continue the application when there will be changes to terms and conditions may create an impossibility because the post might have a different name".  Oh well, at least the same end is being achieved.

This will be a great reassurance to potential applicants, and I hope that more applications will come forward over the next year as a result.

Finally, Greg Clark said "Developers can rest assured it will be business as usual during the transition with no unnecessary delays."  I wonder what 'necessary delays' might be.  Maybe he is referring to the additional three months that applications will take once National Policy Statements are in place, while the government makes a decision on an application. Sorry, couldn't resist.

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221: IPC seeks incineration expert as first Local Impact Reports published

10th March 2011

The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) is currently considering two applications, both for 'energy from waste' plants (we don't use the 'I' word) and both promoted by Covanta Energy.  The one that is further through the process is for a 65MW plant in Bedfordshire ('Rookery South') and the other is for a 73MW plant in Merthyr Tydfil ('Brig y Cwm').  The leading application is progressing through the authorisation process and how it is being treated is obviously of great interest to those preparing applications themselves.

Summary of progress

Until last week, the following steps had been undertaken.  First, the application was actually made on 5 August 2010, two days after the first ever (but subsequently rejected) application was made to the IPC.  The IPC accepted the application on 26 August.  The promoter was then entitled to publicise the making of the application and kick off the objection period, but did not do so until 7 October.  The objection period ended on 19 November and 1004 objections were made (or strictly speaking 'representations', since they could be in favour, but almost all were against).

The ball then went into the IPC's court and it appointed a panel of three commissioners, and held a 'preliminary meeting' on 17 January 2011.  At this meeting (reported here), three matters were discussed:

* whether the list of principal issues previously published covered the main points of contention,
* whether the proposed timetable was acceptable and,
* the only one to attract legal submissions, whether there should be any 'specific issue hearings' - the IPC initially thought not.

The IPC has no discretion as to whether to hold 'open floor hearings' or 'compulsory acquisition hearings', which it must do on request (requests to be in by 6 June), but it can decide whether or not to hold hearings on specific issues.

In the end it changed its initial view and decided to hold one on the development consent order, requirements (conditions) and s106 agreements (planning obligations), which will be on 13 May.  On the issues front, I heard someone from the CPRE say at a conference that they were quite pleased with the issues that the IPC had identified, which is encouraging.

New developments

Last week saw the expiry of the deadline for full representations to be made and local impact reports to be submitted (28 February).  Of the 1004 original objectors, only 94 made full representations, plus a huge bundle of documents from the promoter, Covanta Energy.   There are questions about whether the facility will have enough suppliers, but merely incinerating the project documentation should keep it going for a while. The representations can be found here.

Two of the local authorities entitled to do so, indeed the two 'host' authorities, have submitted 'Local Impact Reports' (LIRs), which are therefore the first of their kind.  These are the only named documents that the IPC must take into account when making its decision and therefore have a special significance.  No-one has been quite sure what they should contain, so the first real examples will be eagerly received.

The application site happens to straddle the boundary of two authorities, despite being fairly small.  The neighbours of the two host authorities (14 of them) are entitled to submit LIRs as well, but none chose to do so. The two host councils have certainly been busy, since they also submitted detailed representations of over 300 pages each.

They can be found here and here.  They are in a very similar format albeit not identical, indeed they were both prepared by the same person (Susan Marsh, to whom I managed to chat about her unenviable task at a conference on the Planning Act last month).

While the written representations are against the project, the LIRs are more neutral.  They set out each council's planning policies and then cover the main environmental topics in summary, referring to the council's detailed representations and the applicant's environmental statement.  There are also a few comments on the development consent order, requirements and s106 agreement.

Finally, the LIR responds to the recommendation in IPC guidance that a view is given on the relative weighting to be given to social, economic and environmental factors.  In fact it does not give weightings, but then it doesn't need to, since it concludes that the socio-economic impacts outweigh the benefits, and the same goes for the environmental impacts.

Next steps

The next deadline is 28 March, when further representations can be made about others' representations, the local impact reports, and the answers to the IPC's questions.

Judging by the length of the submissions, the main opponents seem to be shaping up to be: Bedford Borough Council, Central Bedfordshire Council, Our Marston Vale, 25 town and parish councils, and rival waste company Waste Recycling Group Ltd.

Finally, the IPC is looking for its first 'assessor' (expert adviser) presumably to assist in both live applications, since their field of expertise is to be 'energy from waste plant emissions'.  This should please local MP Nadine Dorries, who has been conducting a Parliamentary campaign against the project principally on that subject (see this Westminster Hall debate, for example). The deadline for applications is 18 March and more information can be found here.

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220: Localism Bill infrastructure planning amendments considered

7th March 2011

On 1 March, the committee of MPs considering the Localism Bill reached the clauses that amend the Planning Act regime. They only took an hour to be considered, but some probing amendments that we had developed in discussion with others and that were tabled by the opposition obtained some useful clarifications and concessions from the government. I am grateful to Jack Dromey MP for arguing the amendments and to Greg Clark, the relevant Minister, for responding to them.

A link to the report of the debate is here (start at column 727 on page 13), but here is a summary.

Keeping the IPC

Before I get to the technical amendments, the Labour MPs on the committee argued bravely for the retention of the IPC, saying that infrastructure would be further deterred, or at least delayed, if decisions were returned to ministers. Ian Mearns used the analogy of the Monetary Policy Committee, the appointed group of 'wise men and women' that sets interest rates, saying that no-one suggested that this power should be returned to the government, and that infrastructure decisions were another area where it was good to avoid 'politicisation'.

Greg Clark made several reassuring statements in response, but at least one of them was a bit misleading. Any claim that giving the government three months to decide applications would not lengthen the process becomes untrue the moment that the first National Policy Statement (NPS) is finalised. That is because the IPC would have to (indeed still might) make a decision no more than nine months after it starts examining an application, whereas the proposed set-up will take up to twelve months.

Greg Clark said 'We will increase [the regime's] dependability and, if we can, increase the speed of decision making, and I can certainly, hand on heart, give [Jack Dromey] the assurance that he asks for on that.' OK, I'm with him so far. Then he said 'the ultimate decision will be taken within the same time frame or sooner by the relevant Secretary of State, rather than by someone unelected. We are absolutely clear about that.' Sorry, no it won't, unless you are just talking about the three month decision period, rather than the whole examination-and-decision period. Finally, Nic Dakin asked 'Is he giving a commitment that the new processes will be as speedy as the processes in the IPC are intended to be? If they are not as speedy and as effective, can he give us a commitment that the Government will review them?', and Greg Clark said 'I can give that commitment'. Well, he'd better get reviewing on the day the first NPS is finalised!

Greg Clark also advanced a new argument for replacing decision-making by the IPC with decision-making by the government: the latter would stand up better to legal challenges. I have heard that before in relation to Parliamentary approval of NPSs, but not in respect of decisions on applications. Jack Dromey thought that Greg Clark's argument was 'optimistic'.

Nick Raynsford said that he had asked government departments if a Secretary of State had ever taken a decision on an application such as this in three months or less to which the answer had been no. He also said that the democratic accountability in the system lay in the development of NPSs - policy-setting would have remained in the realm of democratic accountability.

Incidentally Greg Clark said that applications would be examined by 'a dedicated unit', which suggests that interchangeability between IPC-equivalent examiners and planning inspectors is unlikely.

Other amendments

A pair of amendments sought to change the thresholds for highway and railway projects to become nationally significant from wordy and complex to numerical length-based thresholds, in line with all the other types of project. In reply Greg Clark said that national significance could not be determined by length - a crucial but short road or rail project could still have a national impact on the road or rail network. To which I would reply, that may be so, but the current thresholds are not phrased according to how crucial they are to the national network either. The untangling of railway lines and the addition of new platforms at Reading Station would not have been a nationally significant project and nor would the stalled Thames Gateway Bridge, but a 1.2km diversion of a railway line around a quarry in Derbyshire is.

Another amendment sought to relax the requirement for strict adherence to the rules for applications, by inserting the word 'substantially'. Greg Clark said he would consult the IPC and others on the point but thought that adding 'substantially' would open up a can of legal worms.

Two more amendments would have changed the calculation of deadlines by which stages of the process must be reached.  Currently, if the examination period takes five months instead of six, that merely lengthens the recommendation period from three to four months - no time is saved. The amendment would have started the three-month recommendation deadline at the end of the five months that the examination actually took instead. Greg Clark acknowledged the point but noted that if an examination overran, then the amendment would have the opposite effect. Good point - so I hope to see an amendment to the effect that the next stage starts running when the previous stage did finish or should have finished, whichever is the earlier.

In response to an attempt to reinstate notification of all interested parties if a deadline was extended, Greg Clark said that doing so would mean lots of letters when they could be emailed. The amendment didn't say anything about how the notification was carried out so I'm not sure if that addresses the point.

In response to an amendment that would allow flexibility in the offences that could be included in development consent orders rather than the fixed list that has been provided, Greg Clark said that this amounted to a 'Henry VIII clause', a phrase normally reserved for legislation that is able to amend other legislation without recourse to Parliament. I see what he means, although it does not really go that far.

Another amendment sought to clarify that development consent orders can be modified by the decision-maker - they did not have to be accepted or rejected wholesale. Greg Clark said that the government thought that the amendment was unnecessary and that orders could indeed be amended but undertook to consider the issue further.

Another amendment sought to make it clear that 'requirements' (i.e. conditions) would normally be discharged by local authorities and could be appealed against like conditions can be. Again, Greg Clark said that the government thought the amendment unnecessary but that he would consider it further. The government's 'model' requirements are all currently phrased so that the IPC discharges conditions and not the local authority, so it doesn't look unnecessary at the moment.

The last technical amendment sought to introduce a flexible ability to waive parts of the procedure for smaller applications, as is already the case under the Transport and Works Act 1992. Greg Clark undertook to reflect on the amendment.

Finally, an amendment sought to make the transition from IPC to its replacement more conspicuously seamless by saying now that steps done before the IPC abolition would not have to be repeated, and if a Commissioner or panel had been appointed to consider an application, he, she or it would continue. At the moment the Bill leaves it to a later decision on a case-by-case basis, so promoters or would-be promoters will not know what will happen to their project for a year or so.

Greg Clark did at least declare that no step would need to be repeated, so that is something that is in the bag. On continuing Commissioners, he worried about employment issues, although the Bill does already list continuing Commissioners as one possible option.

In summary, Greg Clark made positive noises about the amendments that were designed to streamline the process and vowed to look at them again, potentially bringing in government-drafted ones once the Bill reached its committee stage in the Lords, so a worthwhile exercise.

(Possibly) unintended joke of the day: according to Jack Dromey, when asked why their infrastructure projects took so much less time to be authorised, Greg Clark's counterpart in France had said 'if you drain the marsh, do you consult the frogs?'. Greg Clark said that in the UK, we did wish to consult the frogs (but perhaps he meant les rosbifs).

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219: Analysis of lack of applications on IPC anniversary

1st March 2011

Today's entry reports on the first anniversary of Infrastructure Planning Commission applications (and reasons for their rarity).

Today, the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has been accepting applications for energy and transport projects for exactly a year.  Time to take stock, methinks.  Since 1 March 2010, applications for the following types of project in England and in most cases Wales as well, have had to be made to the IPC:

* anything generating more than 50MW of electricity onshore or 100MW offshore;
* electricity pylons carrying at least 132 kilovolts;
* gas reception and storage facilities of at least 43 million cubic metres or 4.5 million throughput per day;
* gas pipelines at least 40km long;
* other pipelines at least 10 miles long;
* motorway and trunk road projects;
* new airports or airport extensions of 10 million passenger a year capacity;
* harbours handling at least 5 million tonnes of cargo a year;
* new railways; and
* rail freight facilities covering at least 60 hectares.

So how many applications for projects in this impressive list are the IPC considering? Just two.  No need to look past the first bullet point - they are both for 'resource recovery facilities' that will produce electricity - coming in at 65MW and 77MW respectively.  No pylons, gas infrastructure, pipelines, roads, railways, airports or ports.

Kudos to Covanta Energy for being the promoter of both projects and the only company to have had one application successfully accepted for examination by the IPC, never mind two.  Commiserations to Western Power Distribution, who made an application for a short length of pylon but the IPC did not accept it.  What has happened to all the other applications?

Back in October 2009, I breathlessly announced the first 48 projects the IPC was expecting to receive by March 2011, adding that 'It will be interesting to compare this list with the number and type of applications it does actually receive during the first year of operation.'  That much was right, I suppose.

It is true that there are another 50 applications in the pipeline - and one of them actually is for a pipeline.  Of those, seven have at least started their formal pre-application consultation and more than 20 more have asked the IPC for a scoping opinion on what environmental impacts they should assess.  Their promoters have thus committed money to the application process which is a sign that an application is likely at some point.

Reasons for the lack of applications

Here are my thoughts about why there have been so few applications, set out as reasons and whether they are likely to be addressed.

Reason 1 - promoters are overly optimistic when setting application dates

Independent of the Planning Act regime, and for genuine reasons such as to inject some pace into application preparation, promoters will often aim for an application date that is not in fact able to be achieved.  This reason is likely to continue to some extent, although unrealistic expectations about the pre-application stages of a Planning Act application are likely to reduce as time goes by and promoters gain experience of their own, and others', timescales.

Reason 2 - there are external factors delaying applications

Again independent of the regime, the financial crisis and recession have discouraged investment.  This has directly caused the suspension of some highway projects from the IPC's list, and has indirectly led to delays in others.  Policy changes are causing uncertainty, such as the ongoing 'electricity market reform' proposals and the development of a national planning policy framework.

Not so independent of the regime but independent of individual projects are delays in the production of National Policy Statements (NPSs).  If you think the delays in applications are bad, NPS slippage is no better.

In December 2009, the government gave the following dates for NPS publication and 'designation' (and these were already later than previously advertised) - with actual dates now added.  Although NPSs do not contain new policy, they certainly assist with the preparation of applications.

NPS                                       Est. publication     Actual pub.     Est. designation     Actual des.
Energy x 6                            Nov 2009                 Nov 2009        Later in 2010       
Ports                                     Nov 2009                 Nov 2009        Later in 2010       
National networks              Early 2010               Late 2010      
Waste water                        Spring 2010            Oct 2010          2011      
Hazardous waste               Summer 2010        2011      
Water supply                       Late 2010                Early 2012       
Airports                                 Early 2011              Late 2011

Reason 3 - the new government's changes have created uncertainty

The election of a new government on 6 May 2010 that had vowed to abolish the IPC has made project promoters more nervous about launching an application during a period of flux.  In fact many of the fears are unwarranted - although the IPC will indeed be replaced, its replacement will follow almost exactly the same process the IPC follows, except making a decision at the end, which gets passed to the government.  The new government wants this transition to be as seamless as possible, although I think it is still somewhat, er, seamy.  I and colleagues have been pushing for changes to be made to clause 108 of the Localism Bill, which at the moment says that the government will probably say later what happens to projects that are 'live' at the IPC abolition date of 2012.

Reason 4 - the IPC's policy and restrictions on advice-giving are off-putting

The IPC has a policy of openness, somewhat dictated by Planning Act regulations to publish the advice it gives.  The Act also requires it not to advise on the merits of an application.  The IPC is proud to adhere to the former policy, as it believes it generates confidence in all parties that the playing field is level (informationally at least, not necessarily financially).  The latter requirement gives it some angst as it is difficult to draw the line between advice on merits and not on merits.

The policy of openness may well not change under the transition to the new Major Infrastructure Planning Unit, and this is just something promoters will have to get used to.  They can always get their own legal advice, but of course there is the residual worry that the IPC/MIPU may not agree with it (even if it is right!).  Experience of the regime and practice of the IPC/MIPU should assist on this point.  On the other hand, hidden in the Localism Bill is an amendment that removes the restriction on advising on merits (paragraph 10(3) of Schedule 13, if you must know).  Thus from 1 April 2012, there should be a more relaxed attitude as to the scope of advice that can be given.

The more promoters feel they can ask the IPC/MIPU how they're doing as they prepare applications, the better.  The thought of the IPC/MIPU refusing to tell them anything in advance - even knowing that they are taking the wrong approach - only to turn down the application when it is made, is understandably paranoia-inducing.

Reason 5 - there is uncertainty about changes to applications

There are some provisions of the Planning Act whose uncertainty is creating nervousness amongst promoters.  Here are two examples.  First is how much an application can change from the pre-application consultation stage to the application that is made, without having to rerun the pre-application consultation.  This is a question of degree, but what is the degree?  If an application takes a little more land to improve landscaping, should the pre-application consultation be rerun or not?  At the moment applicants are taking a cautious approach - evidenced by further publication of public notices for two of the seven pre-application consultation stage projects I mentioned above.

Second is the extent to which the application that is granted can be different to the application that was made.  The less flexibility there is, the more likely a minor objection to an application (that could be dealt with by tweaking it) risks the whole application being turned down.

These are both huge risks for promoters at the moment.  They could be resolved to some extent by more explicit drafting in the Planning Act, and with further guidance; again, the use of the regime in practice will begin to show how much flexibility it contains.

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218: IPC and PINS merger proposals mooted

24th February 2011

The Localism Bill, once enacted (probably in November 2011) and in force (probably on 1 April 2012), will abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). It will return examination of applications and decisions on them to the government, although the authorisation regime under the Planning Act 2008 will otherwise remain largely unchanged.

The job of examining applications will be subcontracted by the government to a new unit of the Planning Inspectorate (PINS).  The current working title for this is the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit, although I am told this may change so that people don't call it 'my poo'.

At a Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum event on Tuesday (always good quality events - for its future programme here is its website), Sir Mike Pitt, Chair of the IPC (founded 2009) and Katrine Sporle, Chief Executive of PINS (founded 1909) set out their stalls as to how they saw the folding of the former into the latter taking place. To demonstrate their solidarity and common purpose they used a joint set of Powerpoint slides that had the logos of both organisations on each slide.

It is clear that PINS is expecting former IPC commissioners (those who remain in post) and existing planning inspectors both to be able to do either the job of examining applications under the Planning Act or of hearing planning appeals and other matters currently the domain of PINS.  Katrine Sporle used the word 'interchangeable' a couple of times, although suggested that when they were doing the former job, they should be known as Examiners, and when the latter, Inspectors.  Sir Mike did not demur from this.  We shall see whether that actually happens - the concept of MIPU suggests otherwise at the moment.  If everyone is interchangeable, there would be no idea of a separate 'unit'.

Another phrase that was used that suggests changes to the current regime in the offing was 'full cost recovery'.  This was an idea that was being explored for application fees to match the actual costs of examining applications (which would mean that they would be considerably higher).  Sir Mike said that currently, IPC application fees were regarded by promoters as 'trivial' relative to the cost of making an application as a whole. Of course it is for the government to set fee levels under the Planning Act, so it will have the final say, but this is what the IPC and PINS will be lobbying for.

I asked Sir Mike and Katrine whether they thought that the lack of applications to the IPC so far was due to the operation of the current regime and the (actually unwarranted) uncertainty over its future, or exernal factors such as electricity market reform.  In reply Sir Mike acknowledged that there was slippage, but said that this was more apparent amongst those who did not have high quality legal advice to call on rather than those who did.  Just thought I'd mention that.  Katrine said that even allowing for a long pre-application period, applications for nationally significant projects would still take less time than those that were made before the system was introduced, citing Heathrow Terminal 5, Sizewell B and Felixstowe container terminal.

It is frustrating that the perception that the authorisation regime is in flux and that the IPC is vanishing is putting off would-be applicants - in fact the system will hardly change at all.  As Richard McCarthy, a Director General of DCLG (the government department responsible for planning), said in the final address of the event, he expects 1 April 2012 to be very boring (no April fools, then).  In other words the moment of transition from IPC to MIPU will be almost imperceptible.

I have been pressing for the transition to be even more seamless than it is currently proposed to be.  The Localism Bill provides that what happens to 'live' applications on 1 April 2012 will be decided at that time on a case-by-case basis.  At the WEETF event someone said that if applications were treated differently from each other that might generate litigation, another point in favour of equal treatment.  Wouldn't it be better to declare now that they will all continue as if nothing had happened, and amend the Bill accordingly?  That is almost what Richard McCarthy said - we will see what the decentralisation minister Greg Clark MP says at the Bill committee when it reaches that provision next week.

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217: Will enough energy projects be delivered in time?

21st February 2011

A previous blog entry looked at the reasons for the predicted shortage of electricity generation in the UK by 2017.  The main drivers are the (non-carbon, ironically) emissions limits placed on fossil fuel power plants, and the country's ageing nuclear plants coming to the ends of their natural lives.  Just to maintain the current demand for electricity, a further 25 gigawatts of capacity must be built by 2025, but since wind farms typically only provide 1/3 of their stated capacity and most of the new capacity is from wind energy, the government estimates that 43GW of new generating capacity is needed by 2020 and 60GW by 2025.

This is a tall order - will the the requisite new electricity generation will be provided even if the Planning Act regime works perfectly?

Theoretical project delivery

The main sources of new generation are offshore wind farms and nuclear power stations.  The third round of offshore wind farm site allocations have the potential to deliver 32GW of electricity-generating capacity.  The eight sites identified for new nuclear power stations, if two reactors were built at each, have the potential to deliver a further 25GW of capacity.  According to paragraph 3.3.12 of the Overarching Energy National Policy Statement, a further 20GW of generation has been consented but not yet built or is under construction.  That is a total of 77GW.  There are therefore enough identified projects in the pipeline, although a high proportion of them will have to come into operation as 2025 approaches for the required generation to be provided.  Environmentalists fear that any shortfall will be met by new gas plants, which are the fastest to bring into operation, committing the UK to more fossil fuel production.

What is less certain is whether this programme will be enough to meet the EU target of 15% of energy consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020.  As this target is for all energy and not just electricty, the other main energy sources of gas (for heating) and oil (for transport) are unlikely to switch to renewable sources by 2025, electricity will have to meet the shortfall.  In other words, around 30% of electricity generation will have to be from renewable sources by 2020.  The main type of generation to meet this target is wind energy - gas (even CO2 captured) and nuclear are not renewable sources, although biomass and energy from waste projects do count as renewables.  It seems that pretty much all of the Round 3 offshore sites will have to come into operation by 2020 to meet the 30% figure.

Actual project delivery

How are the projects doing in terms of coming forward before the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC)?

Of the 52 projects on the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) website here, 36 relate to energy infrastructure.  I have added up the capacity of each project and pessimistically taking the lower bound where a range is given, the total is around 23GW, a long way short of the 57GW that needs to be under development.  Only four of the eight nuclear sites have appeared so far.  All but one of the round 3 wind farm sites do appear, but several with less than their maximum expected capacities.  Only two applications for energy projects have been accepted by the IPC in its first year of operation.

Nevertheless, the dates given for the projects suggest that they could come onstream at about the right rate to replace the infrastructure going offline towards 2025.  Having said that, I confidently predict that virtually none of the applications will be made by the dates currently shown on the IPC website.

If past performance is a guide, back in October 2009 the IPC was expecting 48 applications by 1 April 2011, but it has only received three.  Looking to the future, the next four projects where applications are expected are a gas-fired power station at Tilbury, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and two wind farms in Wales, expected on 28 February, 'Winter 2010/11', 31 March and 1 April respectively.  Given that the Tilbury power station has not started its pre-application consultation yet, that date cannot be met.  I am told that the application for Hinkley Point will not now be made until this summer - indeed, the promoters have just launched an additional round of consultation that closes on 28 March, due to changes to the project.  Of the two wind farms, one has not started its pre-application consultation yet.  There is a chance that the other may meet its application date, but that is only a 25% success rate.

Projects are clearly slipping - why?  As I have said before, projects always slip: this is not a unique feature of the new Planning Act regime.  Sir Mike Pitt, Chair of the IPC, has said that project time advances at about half the speed of real time, and that may well have a ring of truth for projects generally.  What is a feature of the new regime is that the original and then revised application dates are published for the world to see.  Projects slip from their expected application dates because of the unexpected happening.  New environmental assessments are required. Changes are made to the project that need to be reconsulted upon.  Personnel changes.  Funding comes forward slower than expected or market conditions change.  Negotiations with third parties take longer than expected.  This is a general feature of project development and the Planning Act regime is no different.

The combination of almost all identified projects needing to be delivered together with the realities of project programming and delivery are beginning to conspire to threaten the replacement electricity, and all the more, the renewable energy programme.  This should be of concern to us all.

The final instalment of this thread of analysis will consider whether the Planning Act regime itself - and the proposed changes to it - are contributing to project slippage, and, whether or not that is the case, to what extent changes to the regime could help.

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216: Localism Bill latest

16th February 2011

The Localism Bill is one of the main vehicles that is to deliver the 'Big Society', defended by David Cameron at the weekend.  It is of interest to this blog mainly because it makes changes to the regime introduced by the Planning Act 2008, but also introduces 'localism' measures that will have an impact on major infrastructure projects:

* allowing sub-local authority planning policies to be developed ('neighbourhood planning');
* allowing land to be declared as an asset of community value, which delays its sale;
* giving councils more freedom to deal with developers and others;
* extending pre-application consultation duties to 3000 planning applications or so each year; and
* retaining but tweaking the Community Infrastructure Levy.

Progress on the Bill

The Localism Bill is being considered by a committee of 28 MPs, where they go through each of the 207 clauses and 24 schedules in turn.  They have given themselves until 10 March to complete this consideration.  After four (morning and afternoon) sessions interviewing witnesses, they have had ten sessions examining the Bill, with ten to go.  At this half way stage they have considered 89 clauses and seven schedules.  They are therefore a bit behind schedule, but will probably speed up in any case, as the more significant provisions of the Bill are earlier on.

Clause 89 is the first of the clauses on planning - in fact the infamous clause abolishing regional strategies (more on which later), so they have just started to deal with the pure planning measures in the Bill.  During the debate on clause 89, the Minister (Greg Clark) signalled that he would be willing to consider amendments to clause 90 (the duty on local authorities and others to co-operate on sustainable development), which is the government's subsitute for the removal of the regional planning tier. He also commented on the amendments to the duty proposed by the RTIP and the TCPA, preferring a 'lighter touch' rather than prescriptive approach.  Links to the transcript of this and every other session of the committee can be found on my links page.

Amendments made

This will be a short section - after just less than 24 hours of debate on the Bill, the committee has yet to make a single amendment.  The Bill has thus survived entirely unscathed so far.

Having said that, the government has now tabled 30 of its own amendments, which will almost certainly be made.  Here is a summary of what they do.

The first eight are drafting amendments, making it clear that local authorities can only deal with their own neigbbourhood development orders, not other authorities'.

The ninth corrects a reference to a neighbourhood development order that should be to a community right to build order.

The tenth corrects an error that a blog reader spotted and I passed on to the government - the blog changes the law!  Actually it is a defined term that was no longer used that is now repealed, so it doesn't have any legal effect, but makes the Bill slightly shorter.

The next five deal with housing provisions, which are outside the scope of this blog.

The next two are material changes - they allow the Mayor of London to consult on creating a 'mayoral development corporation' and on giving it rate relief powers before the Localism Bill becomes an Act (or so that it is not retrospective, it allows consultation carried out before the passing of the Act to count).  The Mayor is planning on creating a mayoral development corporation to deal with the Olympic park after the Olympics - covering parts of the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest.

After another very minor drafting amendment, the next three tidy up order-making procedures in relation to Scotland and the following one extends order-making procedures to Northern Ireland. The final six amendments make changes to the dates that parts of the Act come into force.  Some provisions come into force immediately the Act is passed, some two months later, and the rest are left up to the government to decide when to bring into force.

Other developments

CALA Homes again

Last week the High Court finally issued its judgment on the latest twist of the long-running litigation on the abolition of regional strategies - the CALA Homes series of cases.  The latest judgment by Mr Justice Lindblom can be found here. This time round the government won.  The November statement by Eric Pickles that the Localism Bill will abolish regional strategies (which it does in fact currently provide and this survived the committee stage yesterday) can indeed count as a material consideration when local authorities decide planning applications.

In plain terms, that means that councils have slightly more justification for turning down applications for new houses, so not a total CALAmity for the housebuilders.  CALA Homes has said it will seek permission to appeal the decision, but losing litigants always say that - we shall see if they actually do, and are allowed to.

Appealing planning permissions

Two of the Lib Dem MPs on the Localism Bill committee have tabled an amendment to include a limited 'third party right of appeal' (in other words the ability to appeal against the grant of planning permission rather than just its refusal, as at present).  The right would be limited to local councillors, parish councils and neighbourhood forums and would only be when the application went against the council's planning policies.  As it is a new clause, it will be debated and voted upon after nearly all the existing clauses have been considered, i.e. on or just before the last day of committee sittings on 10 March.  Given that there are three Lib Dem MPs on the committee, it depends how the third Lib Dem, minister Andrew Stunell, votes, and whether the often but not always absent Ulster Unionist does not turn up.  He would need to vote with his colleagues and be supported by Labour, plus a DUP vote or absention, for the government to be defeated.

Officers' pay

Eric Pickles has suggested today that the provisions in the Bill about councils voting on senior executives' pay should start at a threshold of £100,000.

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215: IPC issues advice on objections and environmental assessment

14th February 2011

The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has issued eight advice notes over the last few months on various aspects of the Planning Act regime.  It is now dividing its eighth advice note on making objections into five, and has just published its ninth advice note, on the subject of environmental assessment.

Forthcoming advice notes are also promised on habitats assessments and transboundary effects, but here is a summary of the newly-issued documents.

Advice on making objections

There used to be a single advice note 8 entitled 'how to have your say', but the IPC has seen fit to divide this into five advice notes, numbered 8.1 to 8.5, addressing the various stages of public participation in an application.

Advice note 8.3 has been published so far, and is the one most closely corresponding to the original advice note 8.  It is entitled 'how to register and make a written representation'.  Somewhat hidden in the regulations supporting the Planning Act is the concept of having to register to make a representation.  The advice note confirms that registration is necessary and can only be done during the representation period, which may be as short as 28 days.  The note does not mention that the IPC encourages representations to be no more than 500 words, given that there will be a chance to submit a fuller written representation later.

The other 'series 8' advice notes will be:

* 8.1: How the process works – opportunities to be involved
* 8.2: How to have your say on a major infrastructure proposal – The developer’s consultation
* 8.4: How an application will be examined by the IPC – The Preliminary Meeting
* 8.5: Putting your case on an application to the IPC – the examination process

I was sent a copy of the last one with the note of the Rookery South preliminary meeting that I attended last month, and can forward it on request to anyone who is interested, although its publication on the IPC website is no doubt imminent.

Advice on environmental assessment

Advice note 9 is entitled 'Using the Rochdale envelope'.  This is not advice on using stationery, but on how you environmentally assess a project that still has various options to be decided.

Rochdale envelope

The term derives from two related court cases that were considered in 1999-2000 - R v Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council ex parte Tew and Milne and R v Rochdale MBC ex parte Milne.

In a nutshell, the correct approach is that you should assess the worst case scenario of each option, so that whatever options are eventually chosen, the project will have no worse environmental effects than have already been assessed.  What you mustn't do is assess a 'typical' or 'indicative' project that is a sort of average of what you might choose, which is where the Rochdale project came unstuck.

As the advice note says, it may not be the case that the collective impact of different areas (e.g. noise, visual) will be the sum of the worst cases of each individual impact, since if some are greater, others may necessarily be less.  On the other hand, there could be significant impacts that emerge only when individual impacts are considered together.

On assessing cumulative effects (i.e. the effect of the project in question together with other projects in the area), the note suggests that projects under construction, permitted, submitted for approval or appearing in development plans should be included.  It also says that projects on the IPC's programme should be considered.

In terms of the development consent order (DCO), the advice note suggests that it could specify ranges for the development that is permitted.  It gives offshore wind farms as an example and suggests that maxima and minima could be specified for the number of turbines, their height and their separation.  It does not deal with the issue of alternative locations - can a DCO authorise development in one location or another, but not both?

The issuing of further advice notes is to be welcomed given the reluctance of promoters to seek advice that will then be published on the IPC's advice log.  I'm sure that the IPC would welcome suggestions for further advice note topics.

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214: infrastructure projects gaining momentum

10th February 2011

2011 has seen a little more momentum building up with the projects that require authorisation under the Planning Act regime.  As we approach the first anniversary of when the IPC opened to receive applications on 1 March, here is the latest on applications under examination and in the pipeline.

Only one application is currently being examined by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) - an energy from waste project in Bedfordshire being promoted by Covanta Energy.  Written representations on the project are currently being invited until the end of this month.

That application was not the first to be made to the IPC, but the one that was first, for an electric line near Neath in Wales, was not accepted for examination due to shortcomings in the application documentation.

On 31 December, a third application was received by the Infrastructure Planning Commission, some time after the first two were made in August.  This application is for an energy from waste plant near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, promoted by Covanta Energy, who have the other live application.  The IPC had 28 days to accept or reject it for examination, and accepted it on 26 January.  Covanta have taken less time to publish notice of the acceptance than they did first time round - just over a week rather than six weeks.  The objection period will start tomorrow and end on 25 March.  To register an objection, visit the application page on the IPC website here.

Meanwhile, three further applications have started their formal pre-application consultation by publishing notices in national newspapers (the Times seems to be the universal paper of choice - in our experience it works out as the cheapest).  These are Able's marine energy park in North Lincolnshire, Vattenfall's extension to the Kentish Flats offshore wind farm, and Helius Energy's biomass plant in Southampton.  Consultation on all three is running until next month.

Given that only ten projects have started their pre-application consultation since March 2010, and two of those were subsequently withdrawn, this suggests that at last the new regime is getting into its stride.  Of the eight that are still in the running, I am proud to say that we are acting for the promoters of two of them.  Luckily the experience we are acquiring will still be valid once the Localism Bill has finished with the regime, as the application process is to remain largely unchanged.

Here is a custom-made (blog exclusive - woo!) chart of projects that have reached at least one formal stage of the process.  'Scoping' is where the promoter has sought an environmental scoping opinion from the IPC; consultation is where the formal public consultation has been launched; application is where an application has been made to the IPC; acceptance is where the application has been accepted by the IPC; examination is where the preliminary meeting has taken place and the six-month examination period is running; and decision is where a decision has been reached (nothing has got that far yet).
The chart is not quite what was expected a year ago - OK, it is not at all what was expected a year ago, when about 35 applications were supposed to be under consideration by now, but at last there are signs that the process is moving up a gear.

If you want to learn more about the IPC process, there is a Waterfront conference next Tuesday on it with an excellent line-up of speakers at a fine venue.  For more details see here.

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213: Localism Bill - community consultation launched and other progress

7th February 2011

The Localism Bill is currently undergoing its Commons committee stage.  Although the regime for planning and authorising nationally significant infrastructure projects is largely unscathed, other provisions of the Bill could create additional hurdles to implementation.

The committee of MPs examining the Bill has had its first four sessions considering the clauses of the Bill in more detail.  No changes have been made to the first 31 clauses of the Bill, which deal with:

* the general power of competence for local authorities,
* their ability to return to the committee system,
* relaxation of predetermination rules,
* abolition of the Standards Board,
* senior pay accountability and
* part of the passing down of EU fines.

Meanwhile, the government has launched two consultations on aspects of the Bill, presumably confident that they will not change too much during its Parliamentary progress.  These are the community right to challenge and the 'community right to buy'.

The consultation documents are here and here, but here is the low-down. Both consultations close on 3 May.

Community right to challenge

This is the ability of community groups to challenge the provision of a service by or on behalf of a local authority, to say they can do it better and to trigger a procurement exercise.  This is something of a Trojan horse as it is by no means certain that the community group will win the eventual procurement exercise, which could be won by a company with no community links.  I shall refer to it as the CRC.

First, a distinction is made between 'functions' and 'services' of a local authority.  THe former are not up for grabs and are where a local authority is making a decision.

The first question that is asked is which services should be exempted.  The only ones that the consultation paper says will definitely be excluded are those where legislation prevents outsourcing, e.g. fire and rescue functions.  Even services jointly commissioned with other bodies could be subject to the CRC if they relate to local authority functions.

The next question is whether any other public bodies should be subject to the CRC.  The consultation paper suggests only fire and rescue authorities for the moment.

Then there are questions about bids.  How often should they be able to be made, and for how long?  The paper does not make a suggestion.  What should a bid contain?  The paper suggests that the bid should explain the benefit of the community body providing the service, give details of its financial situation, and say that it will be able to participate in the later procurement exercise and actually be able to provide the service.  Seems fair enough.

The only reasons that the paper suggests for rejecting a challenge that are not purely factual (e.g. the service is not subject to the CRC) are that the community group is considered by the local authority not to be (a) suitable for providing the service, or (b) capable of providing it.

Finally, the paper asks what guidance and support would be useful.  I would guess that financial support might be requested by prospective bidders.  The consultation does not extend to the later procurement process, which is stated to follow existing local authority procedures, and if the contract is large enough, comply with EU procurement rules.

'Community right to buy'

I am getting increasingly exasperated by the use of 'community right to buy' to refer to the right of a community group to say it would like time to bid to buy a community asset.  It is nowhere near a right to buy - at the most, it is a 'community right to nudge', to use a Big Society buzzword.  At least the Localism Bill does not call it a right to buy, but the associated government documentation does, which is somewhat disingenous.  Rant over.

The process in the Bill provides that community groups can nominate land to be recorded on a list of 'assets of community value'.  When that land comes to be sold, the owner cannot sell it for a certain period, to give community groups a chance to put a bid together.

The consultation document first asks how 'community value' should be defined.  It suggests that it should be left to local authorities, within certain criteria, and that there should be a list of land that cannot be included ('excluded assets').  It suggests that a potential use for land suggested by a community group rather than an actual past or present use should not make it worthy of inclusion.

It suggests that the criteria should include: who owns and occupies the land, what past or present use it had or has, whether there are strong feelings about it in the local community, that it will not be so expensive that community groups will not be able to afford it, and whether there are already restrictions on its sale such as trust port land or allotments.

For excluded land it suggests residential land, except where accommodation is tied to another asset, e.g. rooms above a pub.  The paper asks if land should be exempt if it is partly occupied as well as fully occupied, and whether there should be any other land exempted (e.g. when it is subject to the Crichel Down Rules, where land was previously compulsorily purchased, the original owner is given the right of first refusal).  It suggests that landowners do not have to comply with the process if they sell the land voluntarily to a community group.

The document suggests that anyone with a 'local connection' may nominate land, and the local authority should be able to do so themselves; suggesting that the nomination process could tie in with the new concept of neighbourhood planning.

If a landowner doesn't want the land to be put on the list, the paper suggests giving 28 days for an appeal to the local authority, who have six weeks to decide it.  It asks whether a further appeal should be available, to, for example, the Lands Tribunal.

On timescales, the paper suggests that community groups be given six weeks to register their interest in making a bid, 6 or 20 weeks to prepare their bid, and then 15 months or a year when the landowner can sell the land freely without triggering another moratorium.

Finally, the paper asks what compensation should be payable to affected landowners, suggesting only any additional cost of complying with the procedure in the Bill, with a 90-day limit for claiming it, and that public bodies should be ineligble for claiming compensation.

Plenty of food for thought there.  The Bill continues its consideration in committee tomorrow morning, but there are 35 clauses to consider before the CRC and CRB are reached.

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212: Thames Tunnel looms large in Waste Water NPS scrutiny

4th February, 2011

The last couple of weeks has seen Parliamentary and public scrutiny of the Thames Tunnel project, sorry, the Waste Water National Policy Statement (NPS).  Although not as prominent a subject as, say, nuclear power, there were some interesting points made of relevance to the Planning Act regime generally.

NPSs set out the need and impacts that applicants should address and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) - or its successor - should assess.  A draft NPS on waste water was published in November and it essentially says that only two projects large enough to come under the Planning Act will come forward in the next five years - a relocated Deephams sewage treatment works in Edmonton, north London, and the Thames Tunnel, the proposed 'super sewer' that will run under the Thames and catch sewage before it goes into the river.

On 18 and 25 January, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons examined witnesses on the draft NPS.  The witnesses were from Ofwat, the water industry regulator, the Environment Agency (EA), Thames Water (TW - promoter of both proposed projects), London Councils (the umbrella body for London local authorities) and the Greater London Authority.  There is to be one more session on 9 February next week, when the water minister Richard Benyon MP will be quizzed.  Links to the transcripts of the sessions that have taken place so far can be found here and here.

I also attended one of three public consultation meetings on the NPS on 1 February.  Again two out of three have taken place - the third will be in York on 10 February.  More on that later, but first the Parliamentary scrutiny.

National Policy Statements in general

George Eustice MP asked whether NPSs were redundant now that the government was recovering decision-making of nationally significant infrastructure projects.  An interesting question, but the NPSs are still needed for project promoters to advise them on what impacts to assess, and for the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit to have need set out and to allow them to balance it against impacts in their recommendation to the government.

Waste Water NPS in general

Ofwat said that the NPS was wrong to assume that because a project was in a water company's asset management plan that had been approved by Ofwat, that Ofwat approved of the project - they only approved of the plan overall.  Furthermore, they did not look at need specifically, just limits on consumer prices.  They did think that the NPS had established the need for the two projects, however.

The Environment Agency, on the other hand, said that if a project was in their 'National Environment Programme', then they did agree with it in principle.  The EA welcomed the NPS as a whole.

Ofwat were concerned that the NPS did not say enough on good design (although they were coming from it from the angle that good design might cost too much).  They strongly recommended that the NPS set out a framework for cost-benefit analysis of projects.

Thames Water called for the need case in the NPS to be stronger - not just saying that the projects were in the EA's plan, but why they were.  This is an interesting point for NPSs in general, because promoters have to rely on the government's declaration of need in an NPS and so want it to be as strong as possible.

Both Thames Water and London Councils thought that Defra had not reached that many people through consultation on the NPS.  It is certainly difficult to excite people about policy rather than actual projects.  However, this is an important point because this NPS identifies sites, which then cannot be questioned once the applications come forward.  Thus this is the only chance for in-principle objections to the two projects in the NPS to be made, as with the Nuclear Power NPS.

Members of the committee agreed with witnesses who said that the NPS did not set out enough about requiring impacts on local communities to be assessed - I predict that their report will recommend this.

The main impact of sewage works is odour - did you know that odour is measured in European odour units (ouE), which is how concentrated a substance has to be before people can smell it.  Thames Water thought that the NPS was using an odour standard that was higher than it should have done.

London Councils mentioned the relationship between neighbourhood development plans (NDPs) and the Thames Tunnel, but in fact the tunnel could not be the subject of an NDP, according to the Localism Bill.

There was discussion about Local Impact Reports (LIRs), which local authorities may produce on applications to inform the decision-maker.  They are the only documents that must be taken into account when making a decision.  Tommy Docherty MP, who asked some of the more searching questions, thought that councils should be paid if they were officially scrutinising the application by producing an LIR, but not if they were just a consultee.  The answer is probably somewhere in between the two.

Deephams sewage treatment works

Not much consideration was given to the first of the two projects identified in the NPS.  Apparently the Deephams works in Edmonton processes 800,000 people's waste which is 200,000 tonnes per day.  I didn't realise that people produced 250kg of waste per day - presumably most of that is flushing water.

Thames Tunnel

By far the majority of the scrutiny was taken up with the Thames Tunnel, a project not yet even officially part of the Planning Act regime, but declared to become one when an application is eventually made (which is currently the earliest this can happen, although the Localism Bill will improve this situation).

Formal pre-application consultation on the project is due to start on 5 September this year, with an application in mid-2012, although an informal consultation stage has already taken place from September 2010 - January 2011.  Consultees were most concerned about, in decreasing order, use of open space for construction and operation, traffic and noise.

Thames Water were considering changing the locations of some of the 22 sites where surface land was needed, most likely the three they described as 'greenfield sites' at Barn Elms in Richmond, King's Stairs Gardens in Southwark and King George Park in Wandsworth.  I had thought that King Edward VII Memorial Park in Tower Hamlets was one as well.

Apparently the project will put £50 per year on Thames Water customers' bills, although the number of years was not stated.  By my calculations if TW have 13.8 million sewerage customers and the project will cost £3.6bn, that would correspond to 5 years' bills.

Isabel Dedring for the Mayor of London was concerned that the NPS did not consider lesser (or greater) alternatives to the Thames Tunnel sufficiently, but was reasonably satisfied that TW had selected its 22 surface sites carefully.

Public consultation meeting

I attended the 1 February public consultation meeting on the NPS in Westminster.  It had been downgraded from a formal meeting format to a drop-in session.  While I was there, I think I was the only 'member of the public' who attended.  The difficulty of engaging the public on a policy document was all too apparent.  If it had been billed as 'your only chance to consider the principle of the Thames Tunnel', then maybe the result would have been different.

One thing I did establish was that Defra accepts that the NPS identifies sites as potentially suitable for projects, and therefore it engages the additional consultation requirements in the Planning Act.  This means all host and neighbouring local authorities must be asked how local people should be consulted, and Defra certainly appear to have tried to discharge this duty, albeit not to much effect. The London Borough of Enfield does not seem to have been sufficiently concerned to ask for a public meeting near the Deephams sewage works, for example.

The public consultation on the Waste Water NPS closes on 22 February.  The consultation document can be found here.

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211: Assessments put flesh on bones of Localism Bill

2nd February 2011

The government published no fewer than 33 assessments of the impact of the Localism Bill on Monday, which can be found here.  The assumptions made in costing the impacts of the Bill give a useful indication of the take-up of the Bill powers that the government expects, as well as other information about how the Act will operate.

Pre-application consultation

The Bill extends the requirement for pre-application consultation that applies to nationally significant infrastructure projects to other applications, albeit to a lesser degree.  For the first time, the impact assessment provides an indication of which developments will be caught by this requirement.

The requirement is proposed to apply to all residential developments of at least 200 units (or 4 hectares) and all other developments taking up at least 10,000 square metres (or 2 hectares).  This is expected to apply to 3000 planning applications a year.  Thus the scope of types of planning application is all types, and the threshold will apply to only the top 0.6% of applications.

General power of competence

The impact assessment drily notes that despite being given a general power of competence, local authorities will still not be able to 'wage thermonuclear war' (apparently an Eric Pickles joke).

Community right to buy

The impact assessment calls it this, even though it is nowhere near a 'right to buy' - it is a right to say you would like to be allowed to make an offer (and even falls short of actually being invited to make an offer).

The government considered giving community groups a right of first refusal, but decided against it given the complexity of doing so, and the impact it would have on owners of the affected property.

Community right to challenge

Not much on this, save to say that the government estimates that 500 challenges will be launched per year.  The government did consider giving the challenger the right to take over the service without a procurement exercise, but decided not to pursue such an option for several reasons, not least that there would be no guarantee that the challenger would be any better than the previous provider.

Local referendums

The average cost of a local referendum is estimated to be £70k each if the referendum is held on the same day as another election, or £250k if not, based on data compiled by Tower Hamlets.  This contrasts with the figure of £11m given by Sir Simon Milton last week of an off-election referendum being held across the whole of London (£250k x 33 authorities being about £8m).

The government estimates that 10% of local authorities will have a referendum each year, on average.

The government has decided that referendums should not be binding, arguing that this would undermine the principle of representative democracy (vs participative democracy, see previous blog entry), the objective being to influence rather than control local authorities.

Regional planning

The Localism Bill substitutes regional planning with a duty on local authorities to co-operate on planning, which mainly affects housing, since regaional strategies contained housing targets.  The impact assessment argues that the link between targets and delivery was weak anyway, and that the negative and positive results of abolishing them (e.g. some lower housing targets, but greater acceptance of schemes) won't make much difference.  This is somewhat at variance with the housebuilders' evidence to the Bill Committee last week (see previous blog entry).

Neighbourhood plans

The Bill is not clear on whether neighbourhood development plans can conflict with the local authority's planning policies in its local development framework, and if so, which takes precedence. The impact assessment sheds some light on this.

Neighbourhood development plans (NDPs) are to be in general conformity with just the 'strategic elements' of the development plan, and this phrase will be defined in national planning policy framework.  An NDP can be thrown out by the local authority if it conflicts with these strategic elements, or national policy, or legal requirements.  No news on how conflicts between a neighbourhood plan and the 'non-strategic' elements of the development plan are resolved, though.

The assessment also says that if a local planning authority adopts a neighbourhood plan that proposes less development than identified within the development plan, it may be revoked by the government.

The assessment estimates that the average neighbourhood development plan will cost £63,000 to set up, and that there will be nearly 2000 of them in five years.  The total of £126m is a bit more than the £3m it has set aside for them so far.

There are expected to be as many neighbourhood areas as there currently are local government wards, i.e. 7613, assuming that the average area will be the same size as a ward.  That may be a good estimate but for the wrong reasons - I would guess that less than the whole country will be covered by neighbourhood areas, but that neighbourhoods will be on the whole smaller than wards.

Infrastructure planning

Not much to report here, all well known and well reported in this blog.  Apparently the estimated cost saving of not having to publish Statements of Community Consultation in full is £2.7m over 10 years.
Community Infrastructure Levy

65% of local authorities are expected to introduce a CIL by 2016.

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210: MPs gather evidence on Localism Bill

31st January 2011

Today's entry reports on the Localism Bill Committee's four evidence-gathering sessions.

On Tuesday and Thursday last week, the Localism Bill Committee of the House of Commons asked  a lot of questions (286) of a number of witnesses (45) about the Bill.  The Hansard reports of the four (morning and afternoon) sessions can be found here: session 1 session 2 session 3 session 4, but here are some of the themes that emerged.

Purpose of the Bill

Those representing voluntary groups and parish councils were most in favour of the Bill, two professors were most against it, saying it should be called the Centralism Bill and would achieve the exact opposite of what it set out to do. Neil McInroy of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies made several insightful comments including that the Bill may well be sufficiently radical as to have unintended consequences.

The figure of 142, or sometimes 127, reserved powers for the government was oft quoted.  Greg Clark said in response that the powers would be examined one by one during the committee stage, and that in fact some were to allow further flexibility, such as to relax restrictions on the general power of competence, and to waive the requirement for a referendum when council taxes needed to be raised in an emergency.

Another issue that was raised more than once was the tension between the powers being given to local government in the Bill and the powers being given to bodies outside local government such as community groups, or as it was sometimes put, representative democracy versus participative democracy.  One professor suggested that local authorities should be given a duty to develop community empowerment and involvement, rather than the Bill giving powers to 'any old group'.

Neighbourhood planning

There was concern that the power to create neighbourhood plans was being given to potentially very small groups - only three people needing to live in the local area.  Witnesses were concerned that these would not be accountable, and would not have to declare interests. One witness was worried that neighbourhood areas might overlap and conflict with each other.

There was confusion as to the relationshoip between neighbourhood planning and local authority plans - whether the former could go against the latter - some witnesses saying that they could not (which would seem to defeat the concept of localism), and others being not so sure.

Business organisations wanted businesses to be able to consitute neighbourhood forums and do their own neighbourhood planning, so that they could get on with developing business parks, for example.

General power of competence

The general power for local authorities to do anything that individuals normally do attracted a lot of comment.  Most of it was that the power was still too restricted. Some said that the criminal law should be the only thing stopping councils doing anything at all, and that the government should not need to keep checks on the power.  The British Chambers of Commerce were concerned that the power could crowd out private enterprise.

Infrastructure planning

Business groups were worried about uncertainty introduced by changes to the Planning Act regime that they were only just getting used to.

Liz Peace of the British Property Federation thought that the three month limit for ministerial decisions should not be able to be extended, to give more certainty to the business community.
Duty to co-operate and the abolition of regional strategies

There was a considerable party political battle about what policies would produce more house building, without much resolution.  None of the witnesses was prepared to say explicitly that they supported keeping regional strategies, but some did seem to imply that was their view.  The housebuilders said that the change to localism could delay house-building by a year or two, and take six or seven years to get back to pre-recession levels.

There was a lot of debate on the duty in the Bill for local (and eventually other) authorities to co-operate on sustainable development.  This was felt by most to be an inadequate substitute for strategic planning.  As the eloquent Hugh Ellis of the Town and Country Planning Association put it, abolishing regional strategies did not get rid of issues at a strategic level, such as climate change and housing.

One suggestion that gained some currency is that Local Enterprise Partnerships, the ad hoc bodies not mentioned in the Bill but set up to replace regional development agencies, should be charged with the policing of the duty to co-operate.

EU fines

The ability for the government to pass fines imposed by the European Court of Justice down to local authorities was resisted.  It was thought that someone should arbitrate on who was to blame and in what proportion, and apportion the fine accordingly.

Community right to challenge

This is where a community group can challenge the provision of a service by or on behalf of a local authority and kick off a procurement exercise.  Some witnesses noted  that if a community group launches a challenge, it may well not win the subsequent procurement exercise, which will have to be open (although the procurement need not be 100% decided on cost, but in Hackney they had been warned off only accepting bids that offered a 'London living wage').  Others were concerned about whether there would be any control over the size of the service that was challenged.

One witness suggestd that this should be extended to central government services as well.

List of assets of community value

Also known inaccurately as the 'community right to buy', this is where land can be put on a list kept by a local authority of assets of community value, which delays sale of the land until a community group has time to say it is interested in bidding.

This attracted a fair amount of criticism (and fundamental objection from the Country Landowners' Association), on the grounds that it would be used as an anti-development tool, and that it affected people's rights to deal in their own property as they wished.  On the other hand, one witness suggested that local authorities should develop policies against the change of use of land on the list.

Adrian Penfold of British Land and his eponymous review of non-planning permissions said that this right could be a 'tank trap' that could thwart development at the last minute.  He thought there should be restrictions on when it could be exercised, and not be an additional post-planning permission hurdle.

Duty of pre-application consultation

The concept of statutory consultation before an application is made is extended from major infrastructure projects by the Bill, although the scope of the extension is not yet known.  There was concern that the threshold would be too low, and companies would be having to consult on 'hanging baskets'.  There was also concern about the area across which consultation would be necessary for larger projects.

Local referendums

Sir Simon Milton, one of Boris Johnson's deputies, said that to hold a referendum that did not already coincide with an election in London would cost about £11m, 15% of the Greateer London Authority's annual budget.  In other words, local referendums were rather expensive to hold.

Community infrastructure levy

There was some concern from the business community that this would be set too high and discourage development.

Mayoral development corporations

Sir Simon also said that the power to create mayoral development corporations in London was really only in relation to the Olympic Park, but that the power had been made general to avoid the Bill becoming hybrid (a technical issue about Bills that I know far too much about that would allow outside bodies to object to it as for the Crossrail Bill).

Things not in the Bill

All those on the development side did not wish there to be an ability to challenge the grant of planning permission (the so-called third party right of appeal), which is indeed not in the BIll.  Some environmental groups thought it should, however, in limited circumstances such as when the approval went against the local plan.

Planning Minister Greg Clark said that the right had not been introduced since it would be the community appealing against the policies in the plan it had developed, although that does not answer the environmental groups' point.

Another matter not in the Bill that was called for was a presumption in favour of sustainable development, although I suspect there were different interpretations of what this would mean.  Minister Bob Neill said that was best left to policy and guidance rather than statute.  Apparently the forthcoming national planning policy framework will say more.

The business community wanted to keep a uniform business rate across the country and did not want to see local authorities being able to set their own levels.

Analogy of the day: making a planning application was like hitting a golf ball - it was only a small moment of the whole process that went before it of stance, swing, etc.

The committee will start its line-by-line examination of the Bill tomorrow.  Not that many amendments have been tabled, but at least there is more than one.

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209: MPs call for a year's delay to energy National Policy Statements

26th January 2011

Today, the report of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee of the House of Commons into the six revised energy National Policy Statements was published.  The report of the committee can be found here, but to save reading 91 pages, read on.

Select Committee report

The committee heard oral evidence on 30 November from the government and on 14 December from energy promoters and stakeholders.  The transcript of the evidence is included in full, but I summarised it in previous blog posts here and here.

Main conclusion: delay

The committee has made 18 recommendations in its report. The most important recommendation (and one that I don't agree with) is about the timing of the NPSs.  The committee calls for the NPSs not to be finalised ('designated') until:

* the Localism Bill has been enacted and the abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has occurred (probably April 2012);
* the national planning policy framework is operational (not yet open to consultation - suggestions sought by the end of February);
* the national infrastructure plan is operational (it is already, to be updated by the end of 2011) and
* it is 'harmonised' with the electricity market reform process (consultation until March, to be implemented in 2013/14).

I disagree with this for several reasons.  First, in general there is always a new policy about to come out, and to wait until policy development is 'finished' would be futile.  More importantly, however, to delay designation of the NPSs will threaten the delivery of low-carbon electricity production in the UK.  As the NPSs say, and the committee acknowledges, the need for this is 'urgent', and to wait at least another 15 months will put off potential promoters of projects, already concerned at the effect of the abolition of the IPC.

Thirdly, the committee's worry that the IPC will approve lots of projects is unfounded.  It is only likely to decide one application before April 2012, possibly two, and those applications could in any event be 'called in' by the government for decision under the existing regime even if the NPSs are designated.

Other conclusions

Despite the misgivings of the environmental organisations the committee listened to, it has decided that the Appraisals of Sustainability 'pass muster'.  It does recommend, however, that the government should publish guidance on how it will appraise future NPSs in a way that complies with the requirements for Strategic Environmental Assessment (environmmental assessment of policies).

The committee do not like the proposals in the Localism Bill to ratify NPSs in Parliament merely by the chance to vote against them in the Commons (which the government would presumably adopt voluntarily in advance of its Localism Bill becoming law), although it does accept this for future minor changes to NPSs.  It recommends a full day's debate in the Commons and a separate vote on each of the six NPSs, with the possibility of amendments.

The committee approve of the replacement of the IPC as decision-making body by the government, but seek to reduce the government's leeway in going against the recommendations of the replacement of the IPC, the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (MIPU).  It calls for the Localism Bill to set out the circumstances when the government can go against MIPU's recommendation, and to give reasons for doing so.

The committee does not like the perceived weakening of the application of the 'Holford Rules' on siting overhead electric lines, and recommends that the wording of the original drafts (where the rules are the 'basis' rather than beaing 'borne in mind') be reinstated.  Indeed it goes further and recommends that cables are put underground in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The committee accepts the argument for more spatial consideration of energy infrastructure (i.e. saying where it should go), although recommends that this is included in the proposed national planning policy framework rather than the NPSs.

Finally, the committee recommends that types of already-consented infrastructure should be borne in mind when considering new applications, and that the Committee on Climate Change's goal of decarbonising electricity by 2030 should be explicit, worrying that without this there will be a new 'dash for gas'.

The government will consider this report together with the results of the associated public consultation, which closed on Monday, and decide whether any further amendments are necessary and whether to consult further on them.

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208: Localism Bill Committee to get under way

24th January 2011

The Localism Bill, the government's flagship planning and local government Bill that amends the regime for planning and authorising major infrastructure projects amongst many other measures,  starts its committee stage in the House of Commons this evening with a private programming session.  This is the stage where the Bill is considered in detail by a smaller group of MPs - 26 to be precise. Here are the MPs who will consider the Bill.

There are to be two Chairs - David Amess (Con, Southend West) and Hugh Bayley (Lab, York Central).

Three government ministers are on the committee, and three shadow ministers, all from or shadowing the Department for Communities and Local Government - Greg Clark (Con, Tunbridge Wells), Bob Neill (Con, Bromley and Chislehurst) and Andrew Stunell (LD, Hazel Grove); Jack Dromey (Lab, Birmingham Erdington), Barbara Keeley (Lab, Worsley and Eccles South) and Alison Seabeck (Lab, Plymouth Moor View).

There is a whip for the government and for the opposition - Bill Wiggin (Con, North Herefordshire) and Angela Smith (Lab, Penistone and Stocksbridge).

There are then nine 'ordinary' Conservative members - Gavin Barwell (Con, Croydon Central), Fiona Bruce (Con, Congleton), Alun Cairns (Con, Vale of Glamorgan) (originally to be Richard Harrington, but there has been a change), John Howell (Con, Henley), Brandon Lewis (Con, Great Yarmouth), James Morris (Con, Halesowen and Rowley Regis), Eric Ollerenshaw (Con, Lancaster and Fleetwood), Henry Smith (Con, Crawley), Iain Stewart (Con, Milton Keynes South).

Six 'ordinary' Labour members - Nic Dakin (Lab, Scunthorpe), Simon Danczuk (Lab, Rochdale), Julie Elliott (Lab, Sunderland Central), Pat Glass (Lab, North West Durham), Siobhain McDonagh (Lab, Mitcham and Morden), Nick Raynsford (Lab, Greenwich and Woolwich);

and finally, two Liberal Democrats and a Democratic Unionist - Stephen Gilbert (LD, St Austell and Newquay), David Ward (LD, Bradford East), David Simpson (DU, Upper Bann).

In total, there are 13 Conservative members, 11 Labour members, three Lib Dems and one Democratic Unionist.  Thus the coalition has a majority, although no single party does.

The committee will sit in public twice a week for 6 weeks from tomorrow until Thursday 10 March (Parliament is not sitting from from 17 – 28 February), on Tuesdays from 10.30am – 1pm and 4pm – 6pm and on Thursdays from 9am – 10.25am and 1pm – 3pm.

The first two sitting days this week will apparently involve questioning witnesses.  There is no official sign of who these will be yet, although I have seen reports that the National Housing Federation's chief executive David Orr is to give evidence tomorrow, and Jessica Bauly of the CBI on Thursday.  There is a 'programming' meeting at 6pm today, so perhaps that will lead to an announcement.  I'll just mention that I am free on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon...

If witnesses are being examined this week, the business of examining the Bill will start next week.  That is just as well, since so far only one amendment has been tabled, although at least it affects the Planning Act regime.

At the moment, neighbourhood development plans (NDPs), the new proposed layer of planning policies at neighbourhood level, cannot intrude upon nationally significant infrastructure projects.  In other words, they can't say 'we don't want nuclear power stations here', for example - although arguably they could still say 'we only want playing fields here [here being the site of a proposed nuclear power station]'.

The amendment, tabled by Andrea Leadsom MP, would allow NDPs to cover electricity generation between 50MW and 100MW.  She is on record during the second reading debate as wanting more local control over onshore windfarms, so that is no doubt the intended effect of the amendment.  It won't work, unfortunately (for her) in terms of allowing local people to decide policy on sub-100MW onshore windfarms, as nationally significant infrastructure projects do not need planning permission.  An NDP policy would still be a matter relevant to a decision, though.

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207: News on nuclear and waste water national policy statements

20th January 2011

First, I can report that the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee of the House of Commons is due to publish its report on its view of the revised six energy National Policy Statements (NPSs) next Wednesday, 26 January.  Now for more details on the Nuclear Power and Waste Water NPSs.

Nuclear Power National Policy Statement

A week ago, there was a debate in the Grand Committee of the House of Lords on the revised draft Nuclear Power NPS, which was issued in October 2010.  The full Hansard transcript can be found here, but here is a summary of the key points.

As with the debate two days earlier on the other five energy NPSs (reported here), the debate was opened and closed by Lord Marland, under-secretary of state at DECC.

In opening, he said that although the NPS identified eight sites for new nuclear power stations, it was not the last chance to have a say about whether the sites should be taken forward, as there would be a further opportunity once individual applications came forward.  I would give qualified agreement to that: once an NPS is finalised, one cannot question the policy it contains during a subsequent application.  It will therefore not be open to objectors to applications to question the suitability of the eight sites, since that will have been established in the NPS.

Lord Berkeley suggested that if the need for tall cooling towers at Oldbury in Gloucestershire was because the tide went out and water was not available from the Severn Estuary for cooling, that tidal lakes should be built that would fill up at high tide.

He urged the assessment of the carbon footprint of building nuclear power stations - indeed the same should be the case for all infrastructure projects.  Delivering materials by sea and rail rather than road should be encouraged, for example. Lord Teverson asked that the social effects of large numbers of construction workers also be taken into account.

Lord Jenkin asked that sites suitable for nuclear power stations after 2025 should be considered, and made a renewed bid for Dungeness to be included.  He was trying to find out from Natural England what it would take to allay their fears of the effect on the rare shingle beach there.

He referred to the burden of the Planning Act process, saying that it took 20,000 pages to make an application. I'm not sure if that is necessarily the case, but the Covanta Energy application in Bedfordshire certainly has a huge amount of documentation accompanying it.

He also clarified the question of when the deep storage facility would be available for nuclear waste.  It would come into operation in 2040, but would not be able to take waste from the next generation of nuclear power stations until 2130.  I am not quite sure why it takes 90 years to fill up with existing waste.

Lord Davies said that it was important to make it clear that nuclear power was not the complement of renewables, gas was.  This is because nuclear power is 'baseload' generation, i.e. on all the time, and gas is more flexible and can deal with peak load when wind does not.  He questioned Lord Marland's logic that nuclear power need not be subsidised because it was a 'mature business'.

Baroness Parminter said that flooding risk had not been dealt with adequately enough to reassure the public.  She quoted paragraph 3.7.12, which effectively says that the chosen sites are potentially suitable despite the high flood risk, because there aren't any other sites.

She asked when the consultation on the revised waste transfer pricing methodology would be published (how much nuclear power companies pay towards nuclear waste disposal, essentially).  I can tell her that the consultation was launched on 7 December and closes on 8 March (along with a consultation on funding of decommissioning of nuclear power stations).  The consultation page is here. No doubt the results of the consultation will be examined closely by those who think nuclear power is being subsidised.

Lord O'Neill said that if five of the eight identified sites for new nuclear power stations were developed, that would be enough to replace existing nuclear capacity in the UK, and the last three would represent an increase in the nuclear share of electricity generation.  As we have seen, new capacity is also needed to replace fossil fuel plants that have opted out of emissions standards.

The Bishop of Chester noted that the NPS was based on an assumption that electrictity demand in 2025 would be about the same as now, and questioned that assumption.  With the electrification of cars, it will certainly rise at some point.  Lord Marland said in reply that the government was expecting it to be two or three times present demand by 2050.

In summing up for the opposition, Baroness Smith repeated her question from the previous debate as to whether there would be further consultation if the NPSs were further revised.  Lord Marland was passed a note in answer and said that there would be no reason to reconsult or repeat scrutiny if there were no substantive or material changes to the NPSs.

Baroness Smith asked whether the replacement for the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (MIPU), would be able to issue guidance that the government would have to take into account.  I think she meant to ask whether the recommendation of MIPU on an application would be binding on the government, to which the answer is no - just as the government can reverse the recommendations of planning inspectors.  Unlike planning decisions, however, the government is to make a decision within three months of MIPU's recommendation.

Lord Marland noted the issue of flooding in the context of the debate taking place in the Moses Room, but did not say more than the situation was being assessed.  He said it was not as simple as reaching agreement with Natural England if Dungeness were to come forward - the government had taken its own independent advice.

I have to correct Lord Marland's point 'One reason why we are removing the IPC is so that the Secretary of State will have direct control of the decision-making and speed it up.'  It's Winston Smith's chocolate ration again - we have now gone from claims that the revised process without the IPC will be the same speed to it being faster, when in fact it will be slower, by three months.

There was some discussion of MOX (mixed oxide) plants, where reprocessed spent fuel can be used.  One was built at Sellafield but didn't work properly.

Waste Water National Policy Statement

Meanwhile, the dates for Parliamentary hearings and public meetings on the Waste Water National Policy Statement have been announced.  If you remember, the NPS identified only two projects likely to be considered nationally significant - the Thames Tunnel 'super-sewer' and a sewage treatment works in Edmonton, north London.  I wonder whether identifying the project engages the additional publicity requirements in the Planning Act.

Parliamentary hearings are already under way.  The first was on Tuesday this week (sorry not to announce it in advance - too much happening!), where the witnesses were Ofwat, the water industry regulator, and the Environment Agency.  A written transcript is not yet available, but you can view a video recording of the proceedings here.  There are to be two more sessions:

* Tuesday 25 January - the only witness so far announced is Thames Water, who will be the promoter of both the projects, and
* Tuesday 8 February, where the witness will be the minister and officials from Defra.

Two out of a possible three public meetings have been announced on the NPS - both in London, although if there is a third it will be outside London.  The first will be on 31 January at City Hall, and the second on the following day at the Westminster Conference Centre at 1 Victoria Street in Westminster.  Both start at 10 a.m.  I hope to attend the second one. To register, visit this page.

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206: Localism Bill - summary of second reading debate

18th January 2011

Today's entry reports on yesterday's second reading debate on the Localism Bill.

Yesterday aftenoon and evening saw the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons on the Localism Bill, the first debate on the Bill since its introduction in Parliament in mid-December.  The debate lasted for six hours, and duly ended with the Bill receiving its second reading.  You can read the 50 or so pages of Hansard here, but if you don't have time, read on.  First, though, note that Parliament is asking for written representations no the Bill - for more details see below.

The most controversial provisions appeared to be the community right to challenge/buy, having 'shadow mayors' in advance of referundums to elect actual mayors, and the provisions for social housing.  Many MPs also said that localism was useless if communities did not have the means to exercise it (due to the cuts).

Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Local Government, opened the debate.  He gave a high-level wide-ranging speech, (mis)quoting St Augustine and Clint Eastwood.  I had suspected for a while that the Conservatives did not like the word 'regional' - when Simon Hughes MP mentioned it, Eric Pickles called it 'the R-word'.

On the general power of competence, Hazel Blears MP (formerly in Eric Pickles' job), compared it with the 'well-being' power already in existence where councils can do anything in the social, economic or environmental interests of their areas.  She asked what new things councils would do that were not in such interests.  Eric Pickles conceded that 'there is not much difference' with the new power, but councils mighe be less cautious in using it.

Much was said by Labour members of the 126 reserve powers in the Bill of the government to override the localism provisions, saying that this meant the Bill was centralising rather than localising (if I can coin that verb).

Caroline Flint MP, shadow Secretary of State, moved a motion (known as a 'reasoned amendment') that the Bill not be given a second reading for various reasons.  The main reasons given were that the government still had powers in reserve over local government, and the community empowerment and neighbourhood planning parts of the Bill were 'put together hastily without adequate consultation'.

She said that the Bill was nothing more than a smokescreen for unprecedented cuts to local authorities, and the Secretary of State's veto over many powers meant it should be renamed the 'only if I say so' Bill.  She made the point that appointing shadow mayors in advance of mayoral elections gave them an unfair advantage in the ensuing election.  This was echoed by others.

Clive Betts MP, Chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, asked if localism meant bypassing local authorities or not - the government did not seem to be sure.  He asked what would happen if housing and renewable energy targets were not met by the localism measures, and what would happen if local authorities did not co-operate, despite the Bill requiring them to do so (albeit only on sustainable development).

Nick Raynsford MP said that press reaction to the Bill was qualified.  He said that many of the measures did not allow local authorities to do what they wanted (and so were not localism), e.g. outlawing 'bin taxes' and requiring referendums on high council tax rises.

Community rights to challenge and to buy

There was considerable discussion of the community right to challenge, where community groups and others are able to challenge the providers of services by or on behalf of local authorities, and the right to protect assets of community value and potentially buy them.

Charlie Elphicke asked if the right could be extended to national government assets (having the Port of Dover in mind). Eric Pickles said he would think about it.

Joan Walley MP was concerned that the community right to challenge would lead to companies like Capita and Serco taking over more local services rather than community groups.  Although, unless extended by the government, only a community body can launch a challenge, there is at present nothing to stop any organisation from joining the subsequent procurement process if there is one.

Hazel Blears asked that Eric Pickles state that he would not extend the bodies who could launch challenges.  In reply Greg Clark said that the purpose of the Bill was to express a community right to challenge (although I would say it was still not clear who could participate in the ensuing procurement exercise). Hazel Blears said that the community right to challenge would be meaningless if local groups did not have any money to buy assets.

Caroline Flint noted that the 'community right to buy' was limited in the Bill, with no right of first refusal and no right to a fair price (although these could be introduced later).  She said that the planning reforms protected the present but did not provide for the future.

Greg Mulholland MP said that it was not really a 'community right to buy', it was a 'community right to try'.

Planning

David Blunkett asked when the current 'interregnum' in infrastructure planning would end.  Eric Pickles said that there would be 'no gap in the system'.

Hazel Blears asked why involve local people in planning while abolishing Planning Aid?  She said that the Bill raised expectations of local power but dashed them through lack of funding. Even Conservative Kris Hopkins said 'it is quite easy to devolve powers when there is no money left in the kitty'.

On neighbourhood plans, Caroline Flint said that estimates that they could cost up to £250,000 meant that they would allow those with the loudest voices and deepest pockets to impose their will on the community.

Andrea Leadsom MP said that she would seek to raise the Planning Act threshold for onshore windfarms from 50MW to 100MW.  Barry Gardiner MP noted that the government's aim for localism came into conflict with its green aims, as local communities were unlikely to support green infrastructure.

Gordon Marsden MP referred to outside bodies calling for powers to be given to local enterprise partnerships in the Bill - they are not mentioned at pressent.

Oddly, Alok Sharma MP gave two examples of residents opposing housing developments to refute the argument that the Bill would encourage nimbyism.

Geoge Hollingbery MP questioned the minimum size of neighbourhood forums and the local referendums that might result, citing the example of a low turnout in a single-street referendum on a neighbourhood plan.

Zac Goldsmith MP said that local referendums, since they were not binding, had the same status as 'a no-hope petition - although they are a hell of a lot more expensive', and should be made binding.

Nick Raynsford said that neighbourhood forums lacked democratic accountability and it was not clear who prevailed when they conflicted with local authorities

On regional strategies, the Conservatives pointed to fewer houses being built per year during the Labour administration than the previous Conservative one, whle Labour members said that abolishing the targets would lead to even fewer houses being built.  Both could be right.

Peter Aldous MP, a former surveyor, suggested that replacing regional strategies with a duty to co-operate in planning might not be enough.

There were a few calls for a third-party right of appeal (i.e. where grants of planning permission were appealable rather than just refusals).

Strangest analogy of the day - Iain Stewart MP, who said devolving powers to local authorities would be the first time the cub had been away from its mother.

In closing, Greg Clark made an impassioned peroration 'The Bill will put our politics on a different course. It will bring an end to the history of using power to take more power. It will give power to councils, power to communities, power to voluntary groups and power to the people, in the knowledge that the more powerful the people are, the stronger our society is.'  With that ringing in MPs' ears, Labour's reasoned amendment fell by 228 votes to 332, and the Bill was then given a second reading without a vote.

I found two misprints in Hansard - very rare - references to 'putting a break on aspiration' and 'do not touch them with a barge poll'.

The Bill will now go for its committee stage, where it will be examined clause by clause over a number of weeks, probably around two months.

The House of Commons has invited written evidence on the Localism Bill to be sent in as soon as possible. The Committee stage on the Bill will start on 25 January.  Representations should follow the guidelines on this page and be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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205: First Planning Act application examination gets under way

17th January 2011

Today is a momentous day in the life of the Planning Act regime - the first ever public meeting held for an application took place, and the first Parliamentary debate on its successor legislation, the Localism Bill, takes place later.

This morning I attended the first of these - the first 'preliminary meeting' to be held under the regime, for the Covanta energy from waste plant in Bedfordshire.  The meeting was held at the Park Inn, Bedford (I note in passing that its gym had the great name of 'innactive').  There were about 100 people present for what the lead commissioner, Paul Hudson, described as 'an unusual and significant event in planning history'.

Rookery South preliminary meering

The preliminary meeting is essentially a housekeeping meeting, discussing things like the timetable for examining the application, but there was a fair amount of discussion of what those present saw as the main issues, which gave them an excuse to restate parts of their objections.  The proceedings were fairly informal, with Paul Hudson gently keeping the speakers to the subject that they had been asked.  Most called the panel of three commmissioners 'sirs' (or just 'sir' for Paul Hudson) but one objector called them 'you guys'.

Central Bedfordshire Council and Bedford Borough Council (the application straddles the boundary of the two) appeared jointly and took on the de facto role of chief opponent to the application, seated on the Commissioners' right.  Covanta Energy, the promoter, took up positions on the Commissioners' left.  One objector suggested that local people could feel excluded by the arrangement.

After some introductory remarks, Paul Hudson in the Chair asked for representations on three things. First, he asked whether the IPC's list of (five) principal issues was complete (see Appendix D of this letter).  Many issues were suggested, most of which were probably sub-issues of the ones already identified by the IPC.  One new one was the drafting of the development consent order and associated requirements (conditions) and section 106 agreement; others were flooding, air quality, health issues from non-accidental emissions (the last being greeted with a round of applause), and the need for the development given that (allegedly) it may not have as many customers as claimed.

The second question was whether there should be any 'specific issue hearings'.  This is the only of three types of hearing that is at the IPC's discretion - the other two types (compulsory purchase hearings and open floor hearings) must be held if anyone asks for them, and they will certainly be held on this application.  Paul Hudson said that the panel's initial view was that there need not be any.  One objector said that there would be civil unrest if there weren't any - will Bedford be the new Tunis?  This is one area where the IPC's approach will be keenly watched for the future as to which arguments succeed and which fail.

Of course all sorts of topics were suggested as suitable for such hearings.  Even the promoter suggested that the text of the development consent order etc. should be the subject of a hearing.  Interestingly, no-one suggested that a hearing should be held to test the other side's evidence, only so that the suggester's own evidence could be put better.  We will find out by Friday if any arguments succeeded, but Paul Hudson reserved the right to revisit the issue later.

After a coffee break (£1.75 for a coffee!) conveniently held when the PA system broke down, the third question was on whether the proposed timetable was adequate (at Appendix C to this letter).  There was not much opposition to the proposal, some people asking for more time, and the councils' lawyer suggesting that the IPC should give longer to respond to others' written submissions if it was late in publishing them.

Two final points - first, the promoter's barrister mentioned some additional material from them that the IPC had not put onto its website, including a supplementary environmental statement addressing the chimney being 105m high rather than 100m high and a supplementary consultation report giving more detail on the provenance of the representations made. Secondly, the councils' lawyer asked that the IPC bear in mind allowing additional evidence if the relevant National Policy Statement, currently in draft, got finalised towards the end of (or after) the examination process, since the tests for deciding applications would change.

The IPC will publish any decisions arising and its final timetable by Friday 21 January.  There were already two additions - accompanied site visits on 4 February and 12 July.  The meeting finished more or less on time at 1.05 p.m.

The holding of the meeting means that the examination must be complete by 18 July, being six months and a day later.

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204: Lords still unhappy with energy National Policy Statements

13th January 2011

On Tuesday, the House of Lords debated the revised drafts of the first five energy National Policy Statements (NPSs), issued in October 2010.  For the titles and text of the five NPSs, go to the blog links page.  Their Lordships will debate the sixth, on nuclear power, today.  The Hansard report of the debate is here (starting on page 59).  Here are what I see as the salient points, so you don't have to read it all.

The Minister, Lord Marland, opened the debate.  He hinted that the Renewable Energy NPS would change again since it will be revised to take into account new guidance on noise from wind turbines.  The Minister later refused to be drawn on whether further revisions would get further consultation (I suspect not), something which the Localism Bill makes clear is not always necessary.

Lord Giddens said that the government wants 30% of electricity to be generated from renewables by 2030 - it is actually 2020, to meet the EU target mentioned in the previous blog entry.  If this seems ambitious, Spain generated 35% of its electricity from renewables in 2010, wind generating 43% on 9 December.

Lord Teverson made an interesting point that peak demand was twice average demand, which suggested that off-peak electricity was too expensive (a 'market failure').

He suggested that CO2 should be classed as a pollutant as it is by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US, but this was opposed by Lord Oxburgh who said that life on earth would not have been possible without CO2 in the atmosphere.

Lord Teverson also welcomed the test of sustainability on biomass, despite Lord Marland having said that they had decided not to have such a test, relying instead on the Renewables Obligation.

The Bishop of Liverpool, one of two bishops speaking, was worried that the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) would authorise a host of power stations before it was abolished.  He needn't worry - if it is allowed to, it will only authorise one, or possibly two, energy from waste plants.

He commended China as a leader of clean energy (China seems to be simultaneously leading on renewables and being denigrated for building CO2-emitting power stations every five minutes), noting that it was aiming to generate 15% of its energy from renewables by 2020 (perhaps not aware that the UK has the very same target).

Lord Jenkin asked about conflicts between offshore oil and gas and offshore wind, prompted by 'Oil and Gas UK', i.e. whether the IPC would consent offshore wind farms where there were already oil and gas exploration rights.  The Minister did not answer this, other than to rely on market forces.

Lord Judd quoted from a briefing by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which I have been kindly provided with. In fact it can be viewed online here. He noted that RWE have carried out some pre-application consultation on the proposed Triton Knoll offshore wind farm, but all the proposed sites for the onshore substation that will connect to it are over 40km away from suitable National Grid power lines.  The briefing says that the power line may not be considered at all by the IPC, but actually it would have to be, as it would be a nationally significant infrastructure project in its own right.  Perhaps the point is that the knock-on effect of the power line should be considered when deciding where to build the substation.

Also on power lines, Lord Judd and others deplored the perceived weakening in the application of the 1959 'Holford rules' that are used in deciding where to site power lines.  It certainly looks as though they have been - the original draft of EN-5 says "the IPC should recognise that, while they have been reviewed and supplemented, they still form the basis for the approach to routeing new overhead lines", whereas the revised draft says "the IPC should bear them and any updates in mind as they examine applications for overhead lines".  In response, Lord Marland said that the government was 'hardening' the rules, but then said that they should be borne in mind for the reason of cost.

Lord Reay and others mentioned shale gas, being extracted in the US and bringing the world gas price down, and that it should be taken into account.  He also decried the cost of offshore wind power and reiterated his anti-climate change views, saying that the Met Office should not be government funded due to its unreliability.  Lord Marland said that the only country in the world with a privatised Met Office was Malta.  I will remember that for the next pub quiz.

Lord Crickhowell's previous comments about liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and safety at ports had given rise to changes to EN-4, but he still wasn't happy about the drafting, suggesting that port operators would waive safety requirements in their eagerness to get the business.  Lord Marland said he would be happy to discuss the point further.

The Bishop of Chester referred to his previous incarnation as a chemist - presumably he was not speaking literally.  He queried the feasiblity of carbon capture and storage (CCS).  That was swiftly rebutted by Lord Oxburgh, honorary president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (of course there had to be such a thing).  He said that the Chinese had successfully applied CCS to a 100MW power station in Beijing and were now tackling a 300MW one further south.  His concern was more on the lead time to get the infrastructure of pipelines that would be needed in place.

In reply, Lord Marland said that he was meeting Shell, National Grid and Iberdrola on 19 February about what they could achieve with the budget allocated for the CCS competition, and he wanted binding agreements in place by October.

Baroness Smith mentioned the Localism Bill.  She asked about the power of the government to decide that a revised draft had not changed sufficiently significantly as to warrant further public consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny (i.e. that this gave too much discretion to the government).  She asked if the Lords could have an advisory role in ratifying NPSs, since they were not mentioned in the relevant clause.  In reply Lord Marland said that there would be a 21 day period for 'people' to register amendments, and then a vote.  He did not seem to take the point that the vote would only be in the Commons (nor that it need not take place at all).

So those were their Lordships' views, where there were plenty of concerns still expressed about the revised NPSs.  If the same pattern is followed as with the previous drafts, there will be today's Grand Committee debate on the Nuclear Power NPS, and then a debate on the floor of the House on all of them.  There will definitely be further drafts, but these are unlikely to be subject to a further round of consultation.

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203: Analysis of urgency of need for energy in the UK

11th January 2011

Today's entry considers why the need for new low-carbon electricity generation is urgent.

One of the main purposes, if not the main purpose, of the infrastrructure planning and authorisation regime introduced by the Planning Act 2008 and being tweaked by the Localism Bill, is the timely delivery of new energy infrastructure.  Indeed, David Cameron referred to the urgent need only last month.

It is often said that the UK faces an energy crisis, with the danger of 'the lights going out' in 2017, if not earlier.  But what are the facts and figures of the crisis?  This blog entry sets out the sources and figures behind the three main drivers behind the need for new low-carbon electricity production in the UK.  A future entry will look at whether the current authorisation regime is equipped to supply it.

The urgency

There are five main reasons which all combine to create an urgent need for new low-carbon electricity generation in the UK:

1. to combat climate change, energy consumpton needs to convert to low-carbon sources;
2. the EU is imposing ever-stricter limits on other emissions from power plants;
3. existing nuclear plants are getting old and will have to be switched off over the next few years;
4. the UK will be more secure if it generates as much of its own energy as possible; and
5. fossil fuels will run out eventually.

Pressure for low-carbon energy sources

The EU has imposed a target on the UK to produce 15% of its energy (overall, not just electricity) from renewable sources (i.e. not including nuclear) by 2020, as part of the Renewable Energy Directive.  In 2005, the figure was only 1.3%, but the UK got off lightly - Sweden's target is 49%.

This exacerbates the requirement for renewable electricity production, since one of the likely ways for non-electricity energy consumption to become low-carbon is to convert to electricity (e.g. moving to electric cars) and so the demand for electricity is expected to increase considerably.  Indeed, to reach the target, the government's renewable energy action plan expects electricity from renewable sources to reach 30% by 2020, to compensate for heating and transport not doing so well.

Meanwhile, the Climate Change Act 2008 commits the UK to reducing carbon emissions by 2050 to 20% of 1990 levels, to which reducing emissions from energy production will play its part.

EU emissions requirements

Oddly enough, the main pressure to close large carbon-emitting power plants does not come from climate change considerations, but from efforts to reduce pollution from other emissions, although their closure will help with the renewable energy target.

In simple terms, the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD)  required all industrial plants using more than 50MW of fuel (including power plants) either to opt in and reduce their emissions of sulphur and nitrogen compounds to specified levels, or opt out and declare that they were going to close on 31 December 2015, or after they had operated for 20,000 hours from 1 January 2008, whichever is the earlier.  20,000 hours corresponds to just over three years' continuous operation.

16 plants at 13 sites in the UK chose to opt out.  Data is available on how many hours they operated for in 2008 and 2009, a quarter of the way towards the final closure date of 31 December 2015.  For those that operated for more than 5000 hours during that period, they will either have to slow down or close early.

A new directive, the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED)  is imposing stricter emission limits and there will be a new opt in or out exercise with a deadline of 1 January 2014, where those opting out will have to close by 31 December 2023.

Closure of nuclear plants

Meanwhile, the UK's ten nuclear reactors are due to close over the next 25 years simply by coming to the end of their designed lifespan.  By combining the fossil fuel power plants that opted out under the LCPD, estimating their closure dates from their hours of operation in 2008-9, with the nuclear plants, I get the following table (some original research!):

This totals over 22GW, mirroring the figure of 22GW referred to in paragraphs 3.3.7-3.3.9 of the Overarching Energy National Policy Statement.

The figure may increase in 2023 depending on how many plants opt out of the Industrial Emissions Directive (we will know in 2014).  My sources for the table are:

* the report that the government submitted to the EU in March 2010 listing the opted out plants and their hours of use in 2008-9;
* the capacities from the 2010 list of power stations in the 2010 Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES);
* and the nuclear power station closure dates from the NIA website, updated where known (e.g. it says Oldbury is closing in 2008 but it is still going).

The figure of 22GW is more than a quarter of the UK's total generating capacity of around 82GW.  Of that total, 3.5GW is acounted by wind power that only tends to run at about 1/3 of its stated capacity.

Given that current peak demand for electricity in the UK is around 60GW and is likely to increase when heat and transport are decarbonised, you can see why 'the lights will go out' sometime towards the end of this decade unless new capacity is provided.

So those are the details of the challenge facing the UK over the next ten years or so.  From March 2010 a new consenting regime for energy infrastructure came into force.  Is it able to deliver the energy infrastructure to meet the shortfall in supply and the increase in demand?  This is a timely question because of the opportunity to amend the system via the Localism Bill, having its second reading in Parliament on Monday, and will be the subject of a future blog entry.

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202: Analysis of the rest of the Localism Bill (3)

7th January 2011

This blog entry is the final one explaining and commenting on the provisions of the Localism Bill as they affect infrastructure planning.  Previous entries considered changes to the planning and authorisation regime under the Planning Act 2008 (here) and other planning-related changes (here).  Today's entry deals with the non-planning provisions of the Bill.  The Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons (where its general principles are debated and voted upon) on Monday 17 January.

More flexibility in dealing with local authorities

Local authorities will be able to deal with promoters of - and objectors to - infrastructure projects more creatively once their new 'general power of competence' comes into force, which is likely to be April 2012 along with many other of the provisions of what will then be the Localism Act 2011 (or possibly 2012).

Currently, local authorities can only do what a statute has given them power to do.  This presumption will be reversed to allow them to do everything that a statute does not prevent them from doing.  The power is expressed as allowing them to do 'anything that individuals generally may do', so we may see some local authorities going on holiday, getting depressed, and appearing on reality TV shows.

Where planning applications are sought from local authorities, there were strict rules on those taking the decision being able to speak in favour or against the application in advance, given the quasi-judicial role they were undertaking.  The Bill seeks to relax this by providing that views expressed by councillors before taking decisions need not indicate a closed mind when making the decision.  To what extent this will affect more general requirements for natural justice remains to be seen.  There may be a period of testing the new law where councillors on planning committees feel freer to speak against applications opposed by their constituents, until they are reined in by the courts.

Referendums

The power in the Bill to hold local referendums is 'localism' at its purest.  Local authorities must hold referendums in their area if 5% of their electorate petition for one, or if just one councillor requests one, as long as the subject-matter is local to the area and not vexatious, abusive, or illegal.  While 5% of an electorate is quite high, the threshold of one councillor seems rather low - a single rogue councillor could cause chaos by calling for repeated referendums (if managing to avoid charges of vexation).

Referendums could be used to gauge - or marshal - public opinion against a proposed infrastructure project in the area, which could increase opposition when an application is made later, or they could seek to change planning policies favouring infrastructure, or even reverse the granting of permission.  The protection of major infrastructure projects from neighbourhood planning is not carrid over to local referendums.

Taking over services - the community right to challenge

In a new twist on the privatisation of public services, outside bodies can make 'expressions of interest' in running services provided by a local authority or potentially another body exercising public functions.  The authority can only refuse on grounds to be set out by the government later; otherwise they have to run a procurement exercise.

This potentially makes council services more vulnerable to being taken over than previous privatisation regimes such as compulsory competitive tendering and 'market testing' in the 1980s and 90s, since an expression of interest could potentially be made at any time (although councils can restrict the time expressions can be made to certain periods only).  On the other hand, only voluntary, community or charitable bodies, parish councils and council employees can lodge expressions of interest, although the categories can be extended.  The right applies to services provided 'by or on behalf of' councils, and so already-privatised services are equally vulnerable.

Infrastructure providers may be caught by the definition of public authority that is to come later, and so their services may be vulnerable to takeover by others; as it stands they would not be able to submit expressions of interest in taking over council services themselves.

Protected land - assets of community value

Parish councils and other community groups (to be specified later) can seek to protect land by getting it added to a local authority's list of 'land of community value'. The effect of doing so would be to prevent the land from being sold until the community had had a chance to bid for it, although the full details will be set out later.

Although aimed at school playing fields and the like, this provision could cause problems for infrastructure providers.  Land that they had earmarked for development could be added to the list of land of community value, making dealing in it more difficult.

Passing on EU fines

One provision of the Bill that had not been heralded in advance is that where the UK government is fined by the EU Court of Justice for failing to fulfil an obligation under an EU treaty (e.g. to implement a directive properly), it may pass on some or all of the fine to a local or other public authority.  This could have implications for infrastructure providers (as partly 'public authorities'), for their perceived part in the failure to implement a directive.

The rest

A large part of the Bill (36 clauses) deals with housing, but this is not particularly relevant to infrastructure planning and so I do not set out the provisions here.

Finally there are some London-specific clauses at the end, where the Mayor takes over the London Development Agency's and the Homes and Communities Agency's London roles, must produce an environmental strategy and can create 'mayoral development corporations'.

In summary, the Bill contains some welcome changes to the Planning Act regime, although its other provisions could increase the arsenal of ways of frustrating a major infrastructure project by a well-organised local opposition.

Coming up ...

Next week, there are two debates in the House of Lords on the energy National Policy Statements (everything except nuclear on Tuesday and nuclear on Thursday).  These will be reported as usual.

Meanwhile, the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has received its third application, which it must decide to reject or accept for examination by 29 January, for an energy from waste plant near Merthyr Tydfil - here is its project page.  On the plus side the promoter is Covanta Energy, whose other application was accepted, but on the minus side it is on Wales, and failing to avoid associated development there (which is not allowed in Wales) caused the rejection of the other application the IPC has received.

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201: What the Localism Bill means for infrastructure planning (2)

5th January 2011

A previous blog entry looked at the specific provisions of the Localism Bill affecting the regime for planning and authorising nationally significant infrastructure projects under the Planning Act 2008.  Today's entry looks at how the other planning provisions of the Bill may affect infrastructure planning.  A final entry will look at the non-planning provisions of the Bill.

The planning provisions of the Bill are something of a random assortment, both in terms of their signficance and their subject-matter.  The theme of 'localism' means that there are opportunities for active communities to have a more direct effect on planning in their areas, which may cause difficulties for promoters of nationally significant infrastructure projects, which often have adverse local impacts.

Regional strategies are to be abolished, as has been well advertised and inexpertly pre-empted by the government.  There is currently a window of opportunity that will run until around April 2012, when the provision is likely to come into force, for planning applications that are in line with regional strategies to be made and decided.

Duty to co-operate

There is to be a duty to co-operate on the planning of sustainable development.  This is narrower than what was originally expected to be a general duty for local authorities to co-operate with each other, but wider in that it can be extended to bodies other than local authorities, which could include infrastructure providers.  This duty will mostly entail responding to requests for information and comments.  Public bodies that already do this should not be affected significantly.

Development of development plans

The regime for developing local authorities' planning policies reformed in 2004 is tweaked yet again.  Inspectors will no longer have an absolute say on development plan documents - local authorities will be able to make modifications to their recommendations but only if they do not materially affect the policies in the development plan (so presumably mainly to the supporting text).  Documents will also be able to be withdrawn before adoption, when they couldn't be previously.

Community Infrastructure Levy

The community infrastructure levy (CIL), which is to be an optional tariff that local authorities can impose when granting planning permission to spend on infrastructure, is retained, This is despite earlier suggestions that it would be replaced, but it is to be modified a bit.  As with development plan documents, the report of an examiner into a local authority's 'charging schedule' (how much it proposes to charge and on what) is no longer binding.  The use of CIL is clarified (to include capital and maintenance payments) and a power is introduced for the government to require CIL to be passed onto others to spend.

Enforcement

The Bill seeks to stamp out the practice of defending enforcement action and making a new application at the same time - local authorities need not consider the latter.  It also relaxes time limits for enforcement action, to deal with the recent spate of court cases where homeowners hid new buildings behind hay bales and inside barns.

Neighbourhood planning

The most significant planning change is the introduction of 'neighbourhood planning' - a level of plan-making and permission-granting below that of a local authority.

The local authority decides 'neighbourhood areas', but it does not have absolute discretion over what neighbourhood areas there can be.  If a parish council exists, then the 'neighbourhood' is the parish and the neighbourhood forum must be the parish council.  If there is no parish council, which is generally the case in urban areas, a neighbourhood could be any size and the forum could be any number of people from a minimum of a mere three who apply to the local authority.  As a household of four, I am thinking of creating a neighbourhood area for my home address.

Membership must be open to those who live, or want to live, in the area.  I am a little dubious as to how you define people who 'want to live' somewhere - I can see Daily Mail headlines about enfranchising asylum seekers.  Also, the neighbourhood forum does not need to consist solely of residents (or wannabe residents) - it need only 'include' them, so could be a much larger body targeting several areas around the country.  The Bill does not say if membership has to be free.

There are two main new concepts - neighbourhood development orders (NDOs) and neighbourhood development plans (NDPs), the latter being more radical than the former.

Neighbourhood development orders

NDOs are like permitted development - they can grant planning permission in advance for the types of development they specify. They cannot refuse permission and so are not a NIMBYs' charter (NDPs have more potential for being used in that way).  Any type of development can be included except matters decided by county councils,  development that definitely requires environmental impact assessment (i.e Schedule 1 EIA development for the technically-minded), and nationally significant infrastructure projects (i.e. NDOs can't touch the Planning Act regime).

NDOs are subject to examination similar to a local plan inquiry, although the presumption is that this will be done by written representations only.  If it is to go ahead, the NDO must be approved in a referendum, which could just be the voters in the neighbourhood area, or the local authority could extend it to neighbouring areas (even outside the authority area) as well if it sees fit.

Neighbourhood development plans

NDPs are mini-development plans containing policies like those of local authorities but for neighbourhood areas. This time they could contain policies discouraging types of development, although the same list of types of development as for NDOs is excluded from their reach. Nevertheless if an NDP says that only, say, allotments were allowed to be built on some land, does that mean that a schedule 1 EIA development such as a large pig farm could not be built there?  The NDP does not refer to the 'excluded development', but might still have the effect of preventing it.

Again, there is an examination into an NDP, as for an NDO, and there must be a referendum on it for it to be approved.  The Bill does not say at present what happens if the policies in an NDP conflict with the policies in the local authority's development plan.  Localism suggests the former prevails, but this may cause difficulties of knowing what the plan policies for a local authority's area actually are, if they are all over the place.

Pre-application consultation extended

Finally, there is a new power to require pre-application consultation on certain larger developments, a concept with which blog readers will be familiar.  In other words the pre-application consultation duty in the Planning Act will be extended to some types of ordinary planning applications. The scope of this power (i.e. which applications it will apply to) will be set out in later regulations, but the consultation duty appears to be less onerous than the Planning Act regime.  It requires the applicant to bring the application to the attention of a majority of those living in the vicinity and give them an opportunity to comment on it.  Being of a devious mind, it occurs to me that reference to 'the majority' could allow a promoter to leave out any particularly vociferous opponents from its consultation quite legitimately.

Those are the provisions, which along with the Planning Act regime provisions discussed previously, come under the 'Planning' part of the Bill.  Here are some provisions that were expected at some point to be included but weren't in the end:

* third party rights of appeal (i.e. the ability to appeal against the grant of planning permission rather than just the refusal);
* a presumption in favour of sustainable development;
* any reference to a national planning policy framework; and
* the ability for developers to pay off objectors to an application.

The next blog entry will consider the non-planning parts of the Bill that could affect infrastructure planning.

Competition answers and winner

Finally, here are the answers to the last entry's competition and the winner.

1. How many applications has the Infrastructure Planning Commission accepted so far? 1 (Rookery South)
2. What is the only number of commissioners that cannot consider an application? 2 (a Panel must have at least three)
3. How many nominated sites for nuclear power stations are not in the latest nuclear power NPS draft? 3 (Dungeness, Braystones, Kirksanton)
4. How many National Policy Statements have had one or more drafts published so far? 8 (six energy, Ports, Waste Water)
5. The Planning Act regime applies to how many different types of project? 16 (listed in section 14 of the Planning Act)
6. How many IPC commissioners are there? 39 (according to IPC websiite)
7. How many projects are currently listed on the IPC project list (including withdrawn applications)? 55 (ditto)
8. Which clause of the Localism Bill abolishes the IPC? 107
9. How many representations were received on the first application to the IPC? 1004 (1027 including rejected representations - both answers accepted)
10. In which year is the IPC expected to be abolished? 2012 (when Localism Bill expected to come into force)

I have decided to give champagne to the only three all-correct entries: Adam Goodwin, a student at the College of Estate Management in Reading, James Stewart-Evans of the Health Protection Agency, and Catherine Timson of the Waterfront Conference Company and Adams Hendry Consulting.  None of the solicitors (from other firms) who entered got all the answers right - hah!

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200: Two NPSs may be dropped, other news and a Christmas champagne competition!

21st December 2010

The government issued two relevant written statements yesterday - one on major infrastructure planning reform and one on the National Planning Policy Framework - something expected but absent from the Localism Bill.  They can be found here and here.

Major infrastructure planning reform statement

The first statement says many things that we knew already but adds some new information.  First, it is accompanied by a 'work plan', which is essentially a short update of the previous series of 'route maps'.  The work plan can be found here.

It sets out which Secretary of State will make decisions on which applications.  For energy applications it will be the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; for transport applications it will be the Secretary of State for Transport; but before it gets too predictable, for hazardous waste applications it will be the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and for water and waste water applications it will be the Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, jointly.

The timetable for decision-making will be 'unchanged' at 12 months from the start of examination.  Actually it would have been nine months under the old system once the relevant NPS had been finalised, so strictly speaking it is longer.  I feel like Winston Smith noticing that the chocolate ration has been reduced rather than increased.  Nevertheless, the government is going to look at ways to speed the process up even further.  The government will also try to clear the backlog of 64 applications that it received prior to the start of the new regime in March 2010 but has not yet decided.

There is some news on National Policy Statements (NPSs).  The six energy NPSs, revised drafts issued in October, are likely to be approved in spring 2011.  The waste water NPS, issued in draft in November, is likely to be approved in summer 2011.  Waste water will be 'switched on', in terms of applications having to be made to the IPC, in April 2011 (one date that has not changed since before the election).  The Hazardous Waste NPS is likely to be issued in April 2011, to be approved in early 2012.  The need for a Water Supply NPS will be considered once the water companies have finalised their water resources management plans in early 2011 - in other words, this NPS may not be forthcoming after all.

The Ports NPS will be approved 'during 2011', and the National Networks NPS (road and rail) will be published 'in 2011', so the DfT is giving itself rather a large amount of leeway at the moment.  A more precise timetable will be published 'soon'.  There will not be an Airports NPS after all; instead there will be a scoping document published in March 2011 and a draft policy framework in March 2012.

Parliamentary approval for NPSs is contained in the Localism Bill, but the government will seek this even for the NPSs that will predate the Localism Bill being enacted - i.e. the six energy NPSs, the Ports NPS and the Waste Water NPS, and perhaps the Hazardous Waste NPS too.

National planning policy framework

The government intends to combine the 1000 pages of existing Planning and Minerals Policy Statements and Guidance into a single document, the National Planning Policy Framework.  It will have a localist approach, only deliver government objectives where relevant, proportionate and effective, and will be user-friendly and accessible. It will be published for consultation in 2011, but first the government is asking us what it should contain.  Answers on a postcard to Alan Scott at CLG, or in an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 28 February 2011.

Of particular relevance to infrastructure planning, the National Policy Statement regime will remain outside the national planning policy framework for now.

Rookery South update

It has been announced that the preliminary meeting for the first project to be considered by the Infrastructure Planning Commission, a proposed energy from waste plant in Bedfordshire, will take place on Monday 17 January.  The meeting will start at 10 a.m. and will be held at the Park Inn Hotel, St Mary's Street, Bedford.

A preliminary meeting is the equivalent to a 'pre-inquiry meeting' before a public inquiry, but because there is a presumption of no hearings, a different name is used.  It does not deal with substantive issues, but is concerned with the timing and procedure to be followed during the six-month examination period.

The date means that the examination of the application must conclude by 17 July, although because that is a Sunday, the preliminary timetable that lead Commissioner Paul Hudson has published uses Friday 15 July as the deadline.  A decision on the application must be made by 17 October, being nine months later than the meeting, if the energy NPSs have been finalised by then, or 17 January 2012 if not.  Calculating the various deadlines in the Planning Act and associated guidance suggests that the shortest time a preliminary meeting could be held after an application is made is about three months later, but this meeting is more than five months after the application was made on 5 August, meaning that the whole process could take up to 17 months.

The letter issued to interested parties can be found here and makes interesting reading for those involved in this and other proposed applications.

It sets out the preliminary timetable and other matters that will be considered at the preliminary meeting.  Points to note: the panel of three commissioners, referred to as the Examining Authority, or ExA, does not consider that any issue-specific hearings need to be held (but their minds could be changed at the preliminary meeting).  There is still the possibility of open floor hearings and compulsory acquisition hearings.  Only five days have been set aside for each of these, however, so they are not expected to be extensive, despite over 1000 representations having been made.

Local authorities please note that the deadline for submitting a Local Impact Report is provisionally set at 28 February 2011, just over two months away.  This is also the deadline for all full written representations to be made.

An indication of the ExA's more inquisitorial role is given by a timetabled entry for publication of its first round of questions by 21 January, on which comments can be submitted until 28 February.  There is then a second round starting on 11 April, with a comment deadline of 9 May.  Indeed, the letter concludes with a statement of five issues that ExA thinks are the main ones:

* air quality,
* compulsory acquisition,
* landscape and visual impact,
* traffic and transportation, and
* waste recovery and management.

Christmas competition

To celebrate the 200th blog entry and the festive season, here is a quiz on infrastructure planning with a prize of a bottle of champagne for the first all-correct, or the most correct, answer drawn out of the hat after the closing date of 11.59 p.m. on 4 January 2011.  Only those eligible to receive champagne can enter, and employees and partners of Bircham Dyson Bell are also unable to enter - sorry guys.  I will also only accept the first entry from each person.

The answer to each question is a number, and to help you the numbers are in increasing order.  The answers are supposed not to be immediately googlable, but they should all be found somewhere on the blog.  Where it says 'so far' that means up to today's date of 21 December.  Please enter by sending an email with 'Blog competition' as the subject to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Good luck!

1. How many applications has the Infrastructure Planning Commission accepted so far?
2. What is the only number of commissioners that cannot consider an application?
3. How many nominated sites for nuclear power stations are not in the latest nuclear power NPS draft?
4. How many National Policy Statements have had one or more drafts published so far?
5. The Planning Act regime applies to how many different types of project?
6. How many IPC commissioners are there?
7. How many projects are currently listed on the IPC project list (including withdrawn applications)?
8. Which clause of the Localism Bill abolishes the IPC?
9. How many representations were received on the first application to the IPC?
10. In which year is the IPC expected to be abolished?

The Planning Act blog is now going to have a seasonal break but will be back during the week beginning 4 January 2011.  Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all our readers!

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199: More energy NPS scrutiny, plus Localism Bill news

17th December 2010

Six revised National Policy Statements (NPSs) were published in October and a public consultation is running on them until 24 January 2011.  They are also undergoing scrutiny in Parliament.  Here is a report of consideration of them by the House of Commons, and also forthcoming dates for consideration by the House of Lords.

The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee of the House of Commons held its second evidence session on the NPSs on Tuesday.  It had originally planned to have only one session, where the energy minister was the witness (report here) but was persuaded to hear some witnesses from environmental and industry organisations.  As it turned out, the discussion did not deal with the NPSs that much, but was nevertheless (or perhaps 'therefore', given that the changes were fairly minor) quite lively.

The session was divided into two parts: first, Simon Bullock of Friends of the Earth, Dustin Benton of the CPRE, and Ivan Scrase and Simon Marsh of the RSPB were quizzed by the committee.  The committee asked some searching questions - for example, why the organisations complained of the blind faith of the government that a solution would be found to long-term nuclear waste disposal, while they themselves had blind faith that carbon capture and storage (CCS) at a commercial scale would be able to be developed in the next four years.  Their non-nuclear strategy was based on greater efficiency, decentralisation, renewables, more investment in storage and interconnection with other countries.  If CCS wasn't realised, Simon B conceded that on top of some unabated (i.e. non-CCS) gas, nuclear might be the only option to fill the gap between projected demand and supply.

All three organisations thought that the NPSs should be more explicit about how much of each type of electricity production was needed and where it should be built.  They said that the appraisals of sustainability that accompanied the NPSs and had been extensively revised were significantly better but still not good enough.  They did not treat alternatives equally - even dismissively, although the committee seemed sceptical that they should do so.  Dustin Benton pointed out that some of the changes to the NPSs did not appear to have been reflected in the AoSs, giving as examples the relaxation in the application of the 'Holford rules' on siting pylons in the Electricity Networks NPS (EN-5), and the effect of an emphasis on the regional economy on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks. Tim Yeo MP suggested that overhead, underground and undersea cables should be treated more equally in EN-5.

For the second session, the witnesses were Malcolm Chilton of Covanta Energy (the only promoter with a 'live' application being considered by the Infrastructure Planning Commission), Peter Atherton, an analyst at Citibank, Matt Thomson from the Royal Town Planning Institute, Peter Haslam from the Nuclear Industry Association and Jane Smith from the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy.  Peter Atherton (who stressed his views were personal and not the corporate view of Citibank) gave a refreshing analysis of the energy industry and engaged well with the committee.  The other witnesses did not get a chance to say that much, but most notably the other Peter disagreed with Peter Atherton.

Peter Atherton's analysis was essentially that energy companies look at risk arising from five stages of the process - planning, construction, electricity price, operation and decommissioning.  Of these, the two that exercised their minds the most were construction and price, and planning was a relatively low risk matter (so have we been worrying unnecessarily?).  The companies needed to offload the risk to the consumer or the taxpayer.  He said that the chance of 16 gigawatts of new nuclear electricity production being built in the UK by 2025 was 'extraordinarily unlikely'.  The two plants in Europe currently under construction, at Flamanville in France and Olkiluoto in Finland, were both late and over budget.

He also gave the comparative cost of each electricity-producing technology assuming a 15% 'cost of capital': gas £60/MWh, coal £80, onshore wind £80, nuclear £93 and offshore wind £150.

The committee asked about the impact of the Localism Bill in both sessions, but as it had only been published at 7 p.m. the previous day, I don't think its full effects on infrastructure planning had crystallised (other than the analysis on this blog, of course).

The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee now has until 17 January to publish its report on the revised NPSs.

More news of Parliamentary NPS scrutiny

It has just been announced that the House of Lords will consider the first five revised energy NPSs in a Grand Committee session on 11 January, and the sixth (the Nuclear Power NPS) in a session on 13 January.

Meanwhile, evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on the draft Waste Water NPS must be submitted by 5 January.  They will also be holding oral evidence sessions, but timings and witnesses have not yet been announced.

Localism Bill news

The Localism Bill, which implements changes to the infrastructure planning regime, was published on Monday.  Explanatory notes, the official document explaining the provisions of the Bill, finally came out yesterday.  They are usually published at the same time as a Bill; I have also noticed that the explanation of one of the infrastructure planning clauses - clause 114 - is out of order.  Are these clues to the Bill being rushed out before it was ready?

One of the readers of this blog has noticed a minor drafting error in the Bill - section 107(9) of the Planning Act defines 'interested parties' for use in that section - they must be informed if the deadline for a decision on an application is being extended.  The use of the term is being repealed (i.e. the interested parties no longer need to be told), but the definition is not.  I have passed this on to the Department for Communities and Local Government.  The definition will no doubt be removed via a government amendment to the Bill, but why should the Secretary of State not have to inform people when the Infrastructure Planning Commission did have to do so?

It was announced yesterday that the Bill is to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday 17 January.  This will be the first major set-piece debate on the Bill.

On Monday, the government is due to make written statements (out of 20 expected that day) on both 'major infrastructure planning reform' and (conspicuous by its absence in the Localism Bill) 'the national planning policy framework'.

Here are a few briefings on the whole of the Bill that you may find useful - there actually isn't that much around on it yet:

* BBC (3 pages - descriptive);
* British Property Federation (4 pages - descriptive and analytical from property perspective);
* Landmark Chambers (3 pages - descriptive from planning perspective);
* Local Government Association (8 pages - descriptive and analytical from local government perspective).

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198: Localism Bill - effect on infrastructure planning explained

14th December 2010

Today's entry reports on the changes that the Localism Bill would make to the infrastructure planning and authorisation regime.

Yesterday evening, the Localism Bill was finally published.  At just over 400 pages long, it is split into two volumes. Here are links to Volume 1 (clauses) and Volume 2 (Schedules).  The 'nationally significant infrastructure projects' (NSIPs) chapter starts on page 88.  No other accompanying documents have yet appeared, but they are likely to appear on the government web page about the Bill, which is here, or the Parliament web page, which is here.

Twelve clauses and one schedule out of the 207 and 24 respectively of the Bill amend the regime for authorising NSIPs introduced by the Planning Act 2008.  The good news for those interested in the regime - not least the writer and readers of this blog - is that the regime is largely unchanged.  The government is essentially introducing its two manifesto pledges - to reinstate approval of applications by the Secretary of State, and to require Parliamentary approval of National Policy Statements (NPSs) - and addressing some (but not all) of the gaps and anomalies that have been discovered since the Planning Act came into force.  I have banged on about some of these, so I'm glad to see that they are being addressed; and to be honest there are some that I hadn't spotted but the changes seem sensible now I see them.

Indeed, all these provisions of the Bill are either a political inevitability (in the case of the manifesto pledges) or an improvement of the existing regime.  There is some scope for further changes to be made, but none of the changes that is proposed seem to be retrograde.  All the changes amend the Planning Act rather than existing separately to or instead of it, or indeed any regulations made under the Act.  The Planning Act lives!

Here is what each of the twelve clauses (and the schedule) does - note that they are not likely to come into force until April 2012, and may be amended by Parliament.

Abolition of Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) and related tweaks

Clause 107 abolishes the IPC.  All the references to it are removed from the Planning Act by the provisions of Schedule 13.  This is mostly done by substituting references to 'the Commission' with 'the Secretary of State'.  There are a few extra changes, however, of which the most notable are:

* removing the ability to prescribe model clauses (why, I wonder?);
* placing a limit of five on the number of appointed people that can consider an application (while still maintaining the single person/panel system that the IPC used);
* allowing hearings to be held in private in the interests of defence or national security;
* introducing a three-month time limit for the Secretary of State to make a decision after an application has been examined (technically the decision deadline is a year after the preliminary meeting - the various deadlines are counted from this date even if a stage is completed early); and
* allowing development consent orders to include byelaw-making powers, and offences of certain types.

Transitional steps at abolition

Clause 108 allows the Secretary of State to direct what happens to applications that have been received but not yet decided by the IPC at the time it is abolished.  The Secretary of State can direct that a Commissioner or Panel of Commissioners that was considering an application should continue to do so.  Note that this is discretionary, however, and will be decided at the time rather than now, which may prolong uncertainty.

Parliamentary approval of NPSs

Clause 109 introduces Parliamentary approval of NPSs.  It is just approval by the House of Commons (I doubt their Lordships will like that), and if no disapproval is given within 21 days of the final version of the NPS being published, it is approved by default.  Two new sections are added to the Planning Act - one allows the Secretary of State to publish new drafts of NPSs without having to comply with the full consultation process if the drafts haven't changed much; and the other allows the period for Parliamentary approval of NPSs to be extended by up to 21 days at a time.

Future amalgamation of further consents

Clause 110 allows new consents to be added to the Planning Act regime (or consents to be removed), but only in England.  By that I mean that the regime can be extended so as not to require other consents to be sought separately.  Definitely a good thing.

Earlier direction that regime to apply to non-regime project

Clause 111 allows the Secretary of State to declare a project that is outside the Planning Act regime to come within it before an application has been made, within 28 days of being asked.  I had previously whinged about the Thames Tunnel (which is in this situation) having to make 14 pointless planning applications before it could use this regime, so this is good news (although too late for the Thames Tunnel, which will be brought into the regime another way - by amending the list of types of NSIP).

Slightly fewer neighbouring authorities

Clauses 109, 112 and 116 amend the definition of neighbouring authorities to reduce it somewhat (although arguably making it more complicated). Quite a few roles are given to local authorities that share a boundary with the authorities that 'host' the project and the previous definition meant that up to 40 authorities could be involved.  The change is that county councils are no longer neighbours of district councils and vice versa.  Dag nab it, I'm going to have to redo my spreadsheet of neighbouring authorities, but at least this complication is going to make resorting to lawyers for advice more likely!  It still doesn't say who the host authority is for an offshore project, though.

Whole SoCC need not be published

Clause 113 removes the requirement to publish the whole of a Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC) in a local newspaper, but just to publish where it can be inspected in a reasonably convenient way.  This will mean that SoCCs will be longer from 2012 (sounds like a fashion prediction) as they won't cost £££ to publish.

Wringing more information from landowners

Clause 114 widens the information that can be required from landowners to include all those who might be able to make a claim for compensation - previously you couldn't ask about every category, so this alignment makes obvious sense.

Powers to enter onto land earlier and for more reasons

Clause 115 widens the ability to ask the IPC, sorry, Secretary of State, to allow entry onto others' land.  The reasons are widened to include environmental impact assessment and appropriate assessment; the requirement that the land must be going to be acquired compulsorily is removed; and the time limit that the power can only be exercised after pre-application consultation has started is also removed.  Good news all round - well, for promoters, at least.

Undiscovered landowners can join in the examination

Clause 116 (as well as redefining neighbouring local authorities) allows the person or panel examining an application to add new landowners as interested parties if they are discovered subsequently, either if they come forward themselves, or at the invitation of the examiner.

More bodies can discharge conditions

Clause 117 extends the definition of requirements (conditions) attached to a development consent to include requirements to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State or any other person (i.e. not just the local planning authority, so bodies like the Environment Agency, I imagine). Actually it never said that the local planning authority normally discharges conditions, so that could still be made clearer.

Minor tweak to compulsory purchase notice requirements

Finally, clause 118 tweaks the publicity requirements for development consent orders involving compulsory purchase.  A copy of the order no longer need be served on all those whose land is to be acquired, but they must be told where they can inspect one.

So those are the infrastructure planning changes proposed.  They don't look controversial, but are likely to be tweaked and may be added to as the Bill progresses through Parliament.   These clauses represent only one Chapter of seven in the 'Planning' Part of the Bill, which is itself one of eight Parts.  Let us hope that consideration of them does not get lost amongst the rest of the Bill, as the future of Britain's infrastructure depends on them.

I will be reviewing the rest of the Bill for any relevance to infrastructure planning and authorisation, but in the mean time I note with a wry smile that the clause in the Bill revoking the regional strategies is different to the draft that the Government published in response to losing the CALA Homes court case.

... and finally, here is Steve Bell's take on the Localism Bill ((c) the Guardian).

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197: Localism Bill published today

13th December 2010

The long-awaited Localism Bill is finally revealed today.  After at least two false starts, the Bill appears on today's Parliamentary Order of Business as having its first reading today.  Analysis of the Bill as it affects infrastructure planning will follow tomorrow.

Materials

* Links to the Bill Volume 1 (clauses); Volume 2 (Schedules)
* Written ministerial statement by Eric Pickles on the Localism Bill
* Department for Ccommunities and Local Government (CLG) publish essential guide to decentralisation and the Localism Bill
* CLG publish press release on Localism Bill (use of the past tense somewhat premature)
* CLG publish fairly detailed background note to Bill

Here is the 'long title' of the Bill.  Normally given as a continuous sentence, I have formatted it for easier reading:

The Bill will be accompanied by other documents, but it is on its own at the moment.  The main one is 'explanatory notes', which explain the purpose and effect each clause of the Bill in non-technical language.   Other documents are a 'delegated powers memorandum', which sets out the powers contained in the Bill that allow the government to legislate by order, and an 'impact assessment', which sets out the financial and environmental costs and benefits of the Bill.

There was some debate as to whether the provisions of the Bill abolishing regional strategies would require, or at least undergo, Strategic Environmental Assessment, where their environmental effects are assessed and published in an 'environmental report', so it will be interesting to see whether one is published either separately or as part of the impact assessment.
Contents of Bill

The Bill will be analysed in tomorrow's blog entry, but here are the contents of the background note mentioned above:

* right to veto excessive council tax rises
* community right to challenge [council service provision]
* community right to buy [council assets]
* local referendums
* general power of competence
* local authority governance [return to committee system option]
* directly elected mayors
* predetermination [rules relaxed for councillors]
* standards board [abolished]
* pay accountability [of senior officers]
* scrapping bin taxes
* abolition of regional strategies
* community infrastructure levy reforms
* local plan reform
* neighbourhood planning
* community right to build [without planning permission following a referendum]
* duty to cooperate [between councils]
* pre-application consultation [on large developments]
* enforcement [reforms, e.g. appealing and reapplying simultaneously to be forbidden]
* abolition of Infrastructure Planning Commission
* Parliamentary vote on National Policy Statements
* social housing allocations reform
* reform of homelessness legislation
* social housing tenure reform
* reform of council housing finance
* national homeswap scheme
* reform of scoial housing regulation
* facilitating moves out of the social rented sector
* home information packs [abolished]
* London governance changes

Procedure

The 'first reading' is the first stage of the passage of a Bill through each House of Parliament and merely represents the publication of the Bill - no debate or vote takes place.  Bills can start in either House, and are shared between them to spread the Parliamentary load.  Which House to start in was apparently one of the contributors to the delay of the publication of the Bill, but the Commons has been settled upon.

The next stage is the 'second reading', which does involve a debate and a vote on whether the Bill should proceed further.  The debate is likely to take a whole day on the floor of the House of Commons.  Normally, the second reading does not take place until at least two weekends have passed since the first reading, to give MPs time to consider the text of the Bill.  Given that the Commons rises for the Christmas adjournment on 22 December, this means that the second reading will not take place until next year.  The Commons returns on 10 January 2011.

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196: Oh no it isn't - Localism Bill delayed again and other news

9th December 2010

Today's entry reports on a further delay to the Localism Bill and other infrastructure authorisation news.

The long-awaited Localism Bill suffered further delays yesterday.  Originally expected on 22nd November, then even more confidently predicted for today (including by me - sorry!), it is now expected next week.  The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) claim that they have never set a date for it, although their own business plan says November 2010. (Look at Milestones 1 E, 2 A, 2 K, 4 A, 4 E, 4 G, 5 E and 5 G in this document - and it is even more explicit in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' structural reform update)

Instead of the Bill, the housing minister Grant Shapps has issued a press release and a written minsterial statement about reform of social housing, which says that the Localism Bill will be issued 'shortly'.

This time the delays are put down to various reasons, eloquently expressed in this Local Government Chronicle blog entry. I'm not convinced by the 'lack of Parliamentary time' excuse, since it doesn't take up any Parliamentary time to publish a Bill, and indeed on today's agenda there was the item 'Introduction of a Bill'.  The government has introduced the Loans to Ireland Bill instead.

Debating a Bill does need time, granted, and again Parliamentary time had been set aside for the second reading of 'a Bill' in the Commons on 15 December, unusually without the title of the Bill being disclosed. However in today's Business Statement (in which the Parliamentary agenda for the following week is announced), that slot is also taken up by the Loans to ireland Bill, and there is no sign of the Localism Bill for the remaining sitting days this year.  We are therefore looking at a January second reading, meaning that the enactment of the Bill may not happen until early 2012.

So the Grand Old (former) Duke (leader) of (West) York(shire council Bradford) has marched the troops up to the top of the hill for a second time before marching them down again.  I feel sorry for all the conference and other companies who have organised seminars to discuss the Localism Bill in early December - and now they have no Localism Bill to discuss.

In the meantime, here is a brief round-up of other Planning Act regime news.

National Policy Statements and Parliamentary scrutiny

The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee of the Commons has been given a 25-day reprieve in publishing its report on the revised National Policy Statements as it announces a second oral evidence session next week.

Under House of Commons Standing Orders, the committee would have had to report by 22 December, being 39 days before the 'relevant date' of 31 January 2011 announced when the NPSs were published.  Yesterday, the Commons agreed to postpone the deadline until 14 days before the relevant date, i.e. 17 January.  I'm glad someone is paying attention to the deadline.

Also announced yesterday, but mentioned on this blog on Monday, the committee is to have a second oral evidence session on 14 December.  This will be at 11 a.m., provisionally in Committee Room 17.  Witnesses at 11 a.m. will be the RSPB, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and Friends of the Earth; and then at 11.45 a.m. the committee will hear from the Nuclear Industry Association, the Royal Town Planning Institute, Energy UK, Citibank and the Renewable Energy Association.  How did Citibank get in there, I wonder?

Covanta Energy project

The one and only project currently being considered by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has taken another couple of steps towards the start of the formal examination process.  This is for an energy from waste project (the promoter does not use the 'i' word, nor even 'energy from waste' - it refers to the project as a 'resource recovery facility') in Bedfordshire, which has attracted 1004 objections.

First, the promoter has confirmed that it has complied with the requirements in the Act about publicising the application.  Then the Chair of the IPC, Sir Mike Pitt, has announced that a panel of three commissioners will consider it: Paul Hudson (former Chief Planner - and blog reader), Andrew Phillipson and Emrys Parry. The surprisingly complex procedure for arriving at this decision required by the Act is displayed in all its email chain glory on the IPC website.

The next step will be the announcement of a 'preliminary meeting' where the panel will decide the timetable for examining the application.  The meeting is expected to take place next month.  A decision must be taken on the application within nine months of the preliminary meeting.

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195: Localism Bill on Thursday as government confused over contents

7th December 2010

Today's entry reports on the latest timing and contents of the forthcoming Localism Bill.

The keenly awaited Localism Bill (the word Decentralisation having been dropped from the title some time ago) will introduce the first significant changes to the regime for authorising major infrastructure established by the Planning Act 2008, as well as many other measures.  It is rumoured to have around 200 clauses.

The Bill is expected to be published on Thursday 9 December.  This is somewhat later than the date that was originally expected of 22 November, and indeed later than CLG's Structural Reform Plan date of November 2010 (despite their protestations that no date had been set).

CLG have mentioned the delay in their November update on the Structural Reform Plan, but by mistake their references to the Bill contents are not taken from the Structural Reform Plan itself, but from their draft Business Plan, which is still out to consultation.  The two lists do not quite match, but I suspect that the Bill will contain all the things in both lists, and other things besides.

Here is the list from the Structural Reform Plan, with an * against those that are also listed in the draft Business Plan:

* *1.1 Decentralise power as far as possible through the Localism Bill: (a) give councils a general power of competence; (b) abolish the Standards Board; (c) give communities powers to save local facilities threatened with closure; (d) give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services
* *1.2 Identify and implement measures to allow councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to, as part of the Localism Bill
* 1.4 iii Empower authorities and businesses to come together and form new partnerships - Introduce legislation as appropriate through the Localism Bill
* 2.1 Meet people’s housing aspirations by streamlining and speeding up the planning system, through the Localism Bill, including: (a) creating local housing trusts; *(b) abolishing Home Information Packs; *(c) scrapping ‘pay as you throw’ rubbish schemes
* 2.3 ii Increase mobility among social housing tenants to make social housing more flexible - introduce legislation as appropriate through the Localism Bill
* 2.8 Develop options for the Housing Revenue Account, including voluntary arrangements, through the Localism Bill
* *3.1 Replace the Infrastructure Planning Commission with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects, through the Localism Bill
* *3.2 Radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods much greater ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication “Open Source Planning”. Local Planning Authorities able to begin working in new ways on local plans in advance of the passing of the Localism Bill; i. Create a presumption in favour of sustainable development
* 3.3 Maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and other environmental protections, and create a new designation to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities, as part of the Localism Bill
* *3.4 ii Abolish requirement for Regional Strategies through the Localism Bill
* *4.1 Legislate through the Localism Bill for directly elected Mayors to enable the largest 12 cities in England to have Mayors from 2012, subject to confirmatory referenda and full scrutiny by elected councillors
* *4.6 Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue and to veto excessive council tax increases, through the Localism Bill
* *5.9 Give councillors the power to vote on large salary packages for unelected council officials

On the other hand, the draft Business Plan gives the following (and again there is an * against those that appear on both lists):

Introduce the Localism Bill to implement the following actions:

* *1.2 ii, directly elected Mayors
* 2.1 ii, measures to reinvigorate local accountability, democracy and participation
* 2.4 v, closure of Regional Development Agencies
* 4.1 ii, social housing measures
* *4.3 iii, abolition of Home Information Packs
* *4.5 v, reform of the Housing Revenue Account
* 4.6 ii, home swap measures to increase mobility among social housing tenants
* 4.10 ii, abolition of the Tenant Services Authority
* *5.1 v, reform of the planning system
* *5.3 ii, repeal of Regional Strategies and introduction of a duty to co-operate for local authorities
* *5.4 ii, abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission

The draft Business Plan also gives the following.  This is described as 'complete' in the Structural Reform Plan update, given that the draft Business Plan only requires them to draft, rather than introduce, these measures.  If they had taken the measures from the correct source they would have had to list these as delayed as well.

Draft legislation to:

* *a. Give councils a general power of competence
* *b. Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue
* *c. Give residents the power to veto excessive Council Tax increases
* d. Give local businesses the power to veto supplementary business rates
* *e. Increase transparency and local democratic accountability over decisions on local government senior pay
* *f. Scrap bin taxes
* *g. Abolish the Standards Board regime
* *h. Allow councils to return to the committee system should they wish to
* *i. Give communities the right to save local facilities threatened with closure
* *j. Give communities the right to bid to take over local state-run services

I previously set out the rumours and leaks of what the Bill was going to contain on its previous due date of 22 November in this blog entry.  Here are the items from that entry that are not listed above explicitly - will they be included?

* require National Policy Statements (NPSs) to be approved by a vote in Parliament
* add a level of plan-making below local authorities (neighbourhood plans)
* extend the pre-application consultation duty to all major applications, not just infrastructure applications
* require local authorities to complete their development plans by mid-2102
* introduce a 'national planning framwork' to replace the current planning policy guidance and planning policy statements
* clarify the law on predetermination and bias in local government
* referendums on whether to have elected mayors in England's twelve largest cities outside London
* match council tax receipts from new homes to encourage house-building
* allow privatisation of local authority-run services by allowing outside organisations to challenge local authorities that they can do better
* shake up allocations for council housing and homelessness assistance

All will be revealed on Thursday, and of course a full report and analysis will appear here.

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194: Sparks amid snow at energy NPS public consultation event

6th December 2010

It will be a busy week this week for the Department for Communities and Local Government now that the Localism Bill has been confirmed as coming out on Thursday 9 December, but it was a busy week last week for officials at the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).  On Tuesday they were supporting their minister in front of a select committee in the House of Commons; on Wednesday they supported him in action again on the floor of the House, and they also attended a local consultation event in West Mersea in Essex on the proposed Bradwell nuclear power station.  Finally, last week saw the three public consultation meetings on the six revised energy National Policy Statements (NPSs).  Here is a report of the London event, which took place on Thursday.

It was somewhat ironic to discuss climate change with a backdrop of heavy snow, but nevertheless some 30 hardy souls made it to the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre near Waterloo for the meeting (there were at least 100 at the meeting in Kensington almost exactly a year ago on the original drafts).  There were even some anti-nuclear protesters outside handing out leaflets. Although intended to be a public consultation event, only a couple of those present could be considered members of the public, symptomatic of the difficulty of engaging the public in a debate about policy without physical projects on the table.

Hergen Haye of DECC acted as facilitator in the absence of the booked facilitator, and did rather a good job of making sure everyone had their say and that contributions on the same subject were grouped together, making the discussion almost flow.  Giles Scott, head of development consents and planning reform at DECC, introduced the process and what the main changes to the NPSs had been.

There was then a discussion on the process.  I and others asked about the transition from the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) to the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (MIPU) in April 2012.  Giles said that the transitional provisions in the Localism Bill would mean that existing applications that would have been decided by the IPC would take up to three months longer if they were still being considered on 1 April 2012, as instead of taking a decision, MIPU would make a recommendation to the government, who would have a further three months to make the decision.  That looks like a 'seam' to me, but we will see how the transition is expressed in the Localism Bill.

Friends of the Earth are as disappointed as the RSPB (see previous blog entry) with the revised Appraisals of Sustainability that accompany the NPSs.  They were also hoping that the IPC would never make any decisions, but Giles Scott said that unless the government used its 'call in' powers, it would make decisions between the time that the first NPSs were ratified ('designated'), probably in spring 2011, until it was abolished in April 2012.  Thus any applications made so far, until about April 2011 would probably get decided by the IPC (although there is only one in that category at the moment).

Unlike the 2009 energy NPS consultation meeting, but like the consultation meeting on the Ports NPS, we were then divided into groups for separate discussions on aspects of the NPSs over two sessions.  I joined the Overarching Energy NPS EN-1 discussion first and then the Nuclear Power NPS EN-6 discussion.  I asked if it was deliberate that the need for energy infrastructure had been described as 'significant' in the first draft of EN-1 and was now 'urgent' in the revised draft.  Yes, it was deliberate and the new government were quite comfortable with describing the need as urgent where the previous government had not been.  This point is not listed amongst the summary of changes to the NPS, however.  The Nuclear NPS discussion focused on siting on the coast given potential sea level rises, and the disposal of waste.

The discussion then went back into plenary session where comments on the six NPSs were invited.  Giles Scott explained that consented but not yet built projects had not been assumed in the NPSs since they might never be built and so should not be relied upon.  Inevitably EN-6 took up most of the discussion.  The main subjects addressed were again adaptation to climate change and disposal of waste (things got a little tense between Shut Down Sizewell and the Environment Agency on the former issue at one point).  It was made clear by DECC that nuclear was not the only, or even preferred, option for electricity generation - there had to be a mix of energy sources.  The carbon cost of nuclear did include the mining of uranium.

We learnt that there will be a consultation soon on how much of the cost of disposal of nuclear waste should be borne by the nuclear power companies, and how much by the goverment, although the power station owners would bear the full cost of decommissioning them.

[Update: this has now been issued - see this link to the consultation]

Finally I learnt that the revised Communities and Local Government 'road map' for the implementation of the Planning Act regime that was at one time expected 'later in the summer', was still expected before Christmas.

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193: House of Commons debates energy National Policy Statements

2 December 2010

Today's entry reports on a debate on the energy National Policy Statements in the House of Commons yesterday.

No, this is not a repeat of the previous blog entry - it is new.  On Tuesday, the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee grilled the energy minister Charles Hendry on the six energy National Policy Statements (NPSs) (and I understand that they may be having a second session of oral evidence on 14 December).

Yesterday, he was back facing the whole of the House of Commons on the same subject.  This debate is actually one that was held over from the first round of consultation on the NPSs, but it is so late that it has been overtaken by the second round.  The Hansard report of the debate can be found here, starting at column 889.

The atmosphere was very different from Tuesday's select committee debate, with a wider range of knowledge and subjects raised from those present.

Charles Hendry gave an opening speech lasting nearly an hour of the two and a half allotted hours, but that includes several interventions.  He launched into the background to the government's energy policy and was sidetracked into a discussion on the green deal, off-(gas)grid properties, and the Sheffield Forgemasters loan that was withdrawn.

Martin Horwood of Cheltenham suggested that there may not be enough uranium reserves in the world to support a long-lasting expansion of nuclear energy. Charles Hendry said that the OECD disagreed with the figure he was quoting and that thorium and reprocessed plutonium could be used as well.

Charles Hendry made it clear that £1bn was being spent by the government on the first coal-fired plant to be fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) only, since it was the only project left in the first round of competition, and more money would be found for the next three projects for which future competitions would be held.  The first CCS project will apply to Scottish Power's Longannet power station near Kincardine in Fife.  It is the third-largest coal-fired power station in Europe, so if the expenditure of £1bn is effective (which one would certainly hope), the technology should be able to be used at other plants.  I hope the government is keeping rights to any patents that result.

There was some discussion of EN-5, the electric lines NPS, where Charles Hendry repeated yesterday's mention of a study being undertaken by the Institute of Engineering and Technology into the relative cost of underground, and under-sea, electric lines, which is meant to put at rest arguments about how much more expensive undergrounding is than overgrounding.

In reply, Labour shadow energy minister Huw Irranca-Davies asked that several days be set aside for the debate on ratification of the energy NPSs, and that the DECC ministers be able to take part in the debate (rather than being 'squeezed out of their seats by the right honourable and saintly member for Brentwood and Ongar' - i.e. that it was not just a planning issue).  He asked that there be a separate vote on each NPS, and questioned why the vote would be unamendable.  He asked what the point was of Parliament voting on them if they were unable to be amended.

Damian Collins of Folkestone and Hythe, put in a plea for reinstating Dungeness as a potential nuclear site (dropped largely because of Natural England concerns about damage to the protected shingle beach there).

Alan Whitehead repeated his concerns from yesterday that the shortfall in electricity production that could not be met by renewable energy would be met by gas rather than nuclear, saying that the Committee on Climate Change believed that only three new nuclear stations would be ready by 2020.

Richard Graham of Gloucester gave the earliest date for the lights going out of 2014 and commended the Barnwood nuclear academy in his constituency.

Tessa Munt of Wells suggested that the new draft of EN-5 appeared to weaken the application of the 'Holford Rules' for siting overhead electric lines.  In his conclusion Charles Hendry suggested that local areas would benefit from business rates for such projects, although I believe the benefits to be for onshore windfarms only at present.

Charles Hendry responded to the points made.  He confirmed that there would be votes on each NPS individually and that there would not be scope for 'hundreds of amendments' on them (i.e. no amendments at all, presumably).  As the debate deadline of 7 p.m. struck he was cut off in mid sentence.

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192: Minister takes heat over energy National Policy Statements as nuclear events announced

30th November 2010

Today's entry reports on Parliamentary and public meetings considering the energy National Policy Statements.

Six energy National Policy Statements (NPSs) were first published in November 2009.  NPSs set out the need for new infrastructure, and what applicants should assess and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) should consider when applications are made.

Public consultation was carried out on these and over 3000 responses were made.  There was also parliamentary scrutiny of the drafts, consisting of ten committee sessions in the Commons, and three in the Lords, a committee report from the Commons and a debate on the floor of the House of Lords.

Last month, revised versions of each of the six NPSs and accompanying documents were published (see blog entry).  Although the revised NPSs have not changed a great deal, the Appraisals of Sustainability (AoSs) that are published with them have, particularly in how they deal with alternatives.  The number of identified sites for nuclear power stations was also reduced from ten to eight, two in Cumbria being dropped.

Parliamentary scrutiny

The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee of the House of Commons held its single session today considering the revised NPSs.  Charles Hendry MP, energy minister, accompanied by Anne Stuart and Hergen Haye of DECC, was quizzed by the members of the committee.

As usual, the members asked a variety of questions not necessarily sticking to the topics previously set out.  Although the members do not speak with one voice, if there was a theme, it was that the government was foolish to commit itself to carbon capture and storage (CCS), which had not even been invented yet, as the solution to low-carbon electricity generation, while ignoring, or at least not sufficiently supporting, nuclear power.

Albert Owen discoved that the government had not decided yet which Secretary of State would decide applications for nationally significant energy projects - energy and climate change or commmunities and local government.  DECC had the greatest policy involvement, but might be seen to have a vested interest in granting permissions.  It was suggested this might be revealed in the Localism Bill, but I suspect it will just refer to 'the Secretary of State'.

Christopher Pincher asked about how often and in what circumstances NPSs would be reviewed.  Charles Hendry said that new technologies such as tidal energy would prompt a review, but Hergen Haye said that they would be presumed to last for a considerable time.  I had previously understood a review window of about five years.

Laura Sandys' every question was related to security in some form.  She asked what the hierarchy was between NPSs.  Charles Hendry said that they should not conflict (and so should all be of an equal status).

Charles Hendry said that the main reason for the revisions was so that alternatives would be properly considered in the accompanying appraisals of sustainability (AoSs), but Barry Gardiner quoted the RSPB as still being unhappy with the revised NPSs in that respect.  He read their submission which claimed that the alternatives were brief and cursory, and the findings of the AoSs were not properly integrated into the NPSs.  Anne Stuart asked whether that was their response to the original draft NPSs, but I am assured that it is to the revised drafts, which will be disappointing to DECC.

Alan Whitehead started a lively debate about whether the suite of NPSs was a 'charter for gas'.  Gas was expected to fill the gap in electricity generation once old fossil fuel and nuclear plants had closed and before new nuclear and renewables came on stream.  Would that mean we would be stuck with it when trying to decarbonise by 2030, or would the new gas plants know that they would have to have CCS or be switched off after a few years?  Charles Hendry suggested the latter and that all would become clear on 16 December once the electricity market reforms were announced.  Tim Yeo in the chair suggested that the decarbonisation challenge 'was more urgent than the present policy was capable of delivering'.

Alan Whitehead asked what proportion of the 18GW of non-renewable electricity generation would come from nuclear and Charles Hendry said that 16GW could be supplied by 2025 - which presumes all eight nuclear sites in the NPS coming forwards.  Hergen Haye tempered this view somewhat by saying that what the industry planned might not necessarily happen.

Charles Hendry suggested that there was no place for unabated coal power plants (i.e. without CCS), but later said that CCS might be switched off during periods of high demand since it used up about a quarter of the electricity produced by the power plant.

He gave a St Andrew's Day present to Scotland by suggesting that 13 pairs of lochs had been identified as suitable for 'pumped storage' (where water is pumped from the lower to the higher during the night, when there is low electricity demand and released to generate hydroelectricity during the day).

There was some discussion of matters other than electricity generation in the final few minutes.  There was a discussion about energy security, and getting gas from Norway and Qatar; and whether doubling gas storage would mean going from one day's supply to two days' (no, it would go from 15-16 to 30-32 days').

On the electricity network, Alan Whitehead asked about building stategic power lines for future connections rather than in response to existing proposals.  Anne Stuart said that the NPSs would not prevent this.  Charles Hendry remarked that our future electricity would be generated in different places than in the past.

Finally, on nuclear waste, Sir Robert Smith said that 110 years' storage on site was hardly 'interim' storage, but that at least it had been decided that it took 50 rather than 100 years for a nuclear reactor to cool down.  Hergen Haye said that the long-term geological repository (in which there was considerable interest in Cumbria) would be ready by 2040, but would start with waste from past and current nuclear power stations first, and would not take waste from new ones until 2130.

Tomorrow, there will be a debate on the Floor of the House of Commons on National Policy Statements.  This is to be as part of Parliamentary scrutiny, rather than the eventual ratification of the NPSs, which is expected to take place in spring next year.  Charles Hendry said today that there would be separate votes on each NPS, probably on an unamendable motion, following 'a couple of days' debate (which may be an unduly generous prediction).

Public consultation

A public consultation meeting is being held in London on Thursday - one of three on the energy NPSs in general this time, in London, Manchester and Bristol - which I will attend and report on.

Meanwhile, I have just spotted that the government has announced that it is attending five consultation events being organised by local authorities and local interest groups in the vicinity of most of the sites identified for new nuclear power stations.  In one case the meeting will also consider the power lines NPS, EN-5.  Details of the meetings are as follows:

* Wednesday 1st December, 7-9pm, MICA Centre, West Mersea, Essex (re the proposed Bradwell site) organised by BANNG
* Thursday 9th December,  4.30-6.30pm, Whitehaven, Cumbria (re Sellafield)
* Thursday 16th December, 7-9pm, Thornbury Leisure Centre, Thornbury, South Gloucestershire (re Oldbury) organised by South Gloucestershire Council
* Wednesday 12th January, 6.30-9.00pm, Bridgwater, Somerset (re Hinkley Point; this will consider power lines too)
* Saturday 15th January, 10am-12pm, Leiston, Suffolk (re Sizewell)

Unless they have already taken place and I have missed them, there do not appear (yet) to be meetings corresponding to the sites at Wylfa on Anglesey, Hartlepool or Heysham in Lancashire.

I am seeking information on the venues of the events and will update the above list with what I find.

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191: 1004 objections made to first IPC project

26th November 2010

The first application accepted by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) since it opened for business on 1 March is for an energy from waste plant in Bedfordshire.  It is promoted by Covanta Energy and is at Rookery South near Stewartby.  It will be able to generate up to 65MW of electricity, which brings it over the threshold of 50MW that means that it is a nationally significant infrastructure project.

The objection period ran from 7 October to 19 November, and today the IPC has published the objections that it received.  Actually it is unfair to say that they are objections, because it is just as possible to make representations in favour of the project and I haven't counted how many are on each side.  Having said that all the ones I have looked at look like objections, except possibly the one from Natural England.

The objections

The IPC has published the objections here.  Have patience - the page takes a little time to load as it loads the text of all 1004 objections so that they are searchable.  The IPC has categorised them as follows (and I give the totals for each) local authorities (8), parish councils (29), other statutory consultees (12), non-statutory organisations (29) and 'public and business' (925).

The IPC says that it has removed representations that are vexatious, frivolous or offensive.  Given that the last one is number 1026, I deduce that 22 fell into this category.

The extensive pre-application consultation exercise has certainly increased awareness of and engagement with, but not yet acceptance of, the proposal.

The eight local authority objections are from the two 'host' authorities Bedford and Central Bedfordshire (the application site straddles the boundary between them), four of the 14 neighbouring authorities (Buckinghamshire (2 representations), Milton Keynes, Aylesbury Vale and Luton) and Hertsmere, which is not even a neighbouring authority.

The parish councils figure is interesting because the IPC only consulted 15 (which seemed a lot at the time) but there are 29 representations.  In fact 36 parish councils have objected because some of the representations are jointly made. 14 of the 15 IPC consultees objected, plus a further 22.  It seems that the effects of a project such as this are felt more widely than expected.  I had to laugh at the perils of relying on spell checking in one case, where one described itself as 'this pariah council...'.

Skimming through the other representations, there do not seem to be many that repeat the same text, which would be suggestive of a concerted campaign.  This may be a feature of having to enter them online rather than by post, but most of them seem to have been individually crafted.
What happens next

The next stage is for the promoter, Covanta, to certify (i.e. send proof) to the IPC that it notified all the right people about the application.  The Chair of the IPC, Sir Mike Pitt, will then appoint one of the 39 commissioners (other than himself or the pre-application commissioner that was previously appointed) to examine the application.  The commissioner's first task will be to call a 'preliminary meeting', at which the timetabling arrangements for examining the application will be discussed.  Deadlines such as when detailed representations must be made by (initial representations were limited to 500 words) will be set, and by when comments can be made on others' representations.

Although the regime discourages oral examination by having a presumption that everything will be done in writing, it is easy to overturn the presumption simply by calling for a hearing to be held.  Unsurprisingly, several objectors have done so and so there will be a hearing lasting one or more days.

The date of the preliminary meeting is significant because it kicks off the statutory period within which the application must be examined and decided.  The examination can take up to six months from the date of the preliminary meeting.  If the Renewable Energy National Policy Statement (NPS) EN-3 has been finalised by then (it's not clear when exactly it must be finalised by with respect to a particular application, actually), then the IPC has nine months from the preliminary meeting to decide the application.  If EN-3 has not been finalised by
around then, then the IPC has nine months to make a recommendation to the government who then has a further three months to make a decision.

Note that both IPC deadlines run from the preliminary meeting, so that any time saved during the examination gets added on to the decision-making period.  When I say the government makes the decision, again it is not clear if it will be Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is in charge of the planning system, or Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who is in charge of power stations, or both.

If you do not attend the preliminary meeting you will still be able to find out what happened either by visiting the IPC website or by emailing the project's dedicated email address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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