Friends of the Earth openly criticised the government and the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) over its lack of consultation on its National Policy Statements (NPS) at a conference in London this morning.
Naomi Thompson – Planning and Policy Advisor for FOE said the NPS’s should tie into climate change objectives and carbon budgets. Naomi was concerned that two incinerator proposals had been consented by the IPC without credible carbon capture infrastructure proposals.
A Judicial review to the NPS’s brought forward by Greenpeace/FOE will be heard in the high court next year.
The Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport forum conference: ‘Infrastructure Planning: next steps for the IPC transfer, and the impact of the Localism Bill‘ hosted presentations from the government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and Sir Michael Pitt from the IPC.
Sir Michael Pitt spoke about the the transfer of responsibility from the IPC to the Planning Inspectorate. He said that the Inspectorate would be making recommendations to the Secretary of State for Energy by April 2012. Pitt emphasised how seriously the IPC take local authority views in relation to local impact assessments but other representatives said that nationally significant infrastructure projects such as nuclear power stations were more likely to get consent under the new regime.
Department for Energy and Climate Change spokesman Giles Scott said:
“since the general election 15 applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects have been consented totalling 8.8 Gigawatts worth £8.1 bn. These applications include CCGT, onshore wind, biomass, coal and nuclear”. Scott said he was “confident that the government can meet the projected 2025 energy requirements set out in the NPS for Energy”.
Jamie
January 10th, 2012
Whenever Friends of the Earth make an announcement related to renewable energy, I immediately think of the large percentage of their funding received from the EU Commission.approximately 40% I think .Perhaps Naomi Thompson of FOE could let us know the latest figure ?. Their pronouncements are therefore always in line with EU policy and cannot be deemed to represent the wider environmental movement .