UK Planning Minister – John Healey today spoke out against claims that the planning system is preventing renewable energy projects being delivered.
The UK Housing and Planning Minister wrote a letter in response to a Financial Times article about the planning system holding up wind energy projects. The FT article posted on 15th July – “Energy plans face delays, groups warn” was criticised by John Healey for “missing the point”.
“It is precisely because of cases like Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer that had to close one of its factories, that we are creating a fairer, faster planning system” said Healey.
“We know planning is central to reducing our fossil fuel addiction and building up a new generation of renewable energy infrastructure sources such as windpower. Decisions are taking too long under the current system and we need a more efficient and predictable service. That is why we are establishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) that will enable us to cut the time taken to make big decisions from up to seven years down to under a year and save the economy £300m a year.”
Healey however has missed the point that the IPC will only determine planning applications for wind farms comprising over 50 Megawatts (MW) – circa 20 wind turbines. This will only be a proportion of the overall UK wind turbine demand. The vast majority of new wind farm proposals in England will be smaller wind farms of under 20 wind turbines and will continue to be determined by the same authorities who are currently causing the delays.
Meanwhile the Conservatives have said that if they get into power next year, they would move IPC staff to the Planning Inspectorate where they would make recommendations to the Secretary of State. This would have the benefit of allowing increased resource devoted to decision-making on large infrastructure projects without the additional quango costs and move away from politically accountable decisions.
