As we enter into 2009 we face a life threatening problem – that of climate change. Dealing with environmental and energy issues is essential if we are to save lives in the future. In order to deliver the changes needed we must have an effective planning system.
In the early 1900’s poor people in UK cities were building houses on top of each other creating overcrowded slums with no infrastructure. As a result people were dying from disease and poor health. The Public Health Act was introduced to control this problem and save the lives of the masses. This role was later taken over by the planning system – put in place to protect and provide for our needs as a whole community.
The focus of the planning system has now changed and this is reflected in changing legislation through the new Planning Act and government guidance in the form of national policy statements currently being prepared. However – are these changes enough and is the planning system fit for purpose? A planning system that effectively facilitates the delivery of renewable energy needs to look after the community interest over the private interest – but we need to look at the community in a global sense rather than the UK community.
In recent years, politicians and some planning professionals have started to describe the role of planning as “keeping as many people as possible happy”. This is very different to looking after the public interest. Local politicians want to keep their seats and in order to do this they need to keep their vocal electorate happy. The result of our current democratic process means that increasingly the public interest is blindly over-ridden by the personal wants of the “friends” of the local politicians when it comes to making decisions on renewable energy projects.
Changes to legislation may help larger scale renewable energy projects of over 50 megawatts (around 20 turbines) through a better structure for decision making by the Department for Energy and Climate Change. However these changes are not designed to help the majority of projects which will be under this threshold and will continue to be determined by local politicians.
Education of politicians and planning officers is obviously key, however even education does not always result in people taking decisions in the interest of the greater good. Unfortunately the human race is often selfish and wants to look after its own personal short term needs. This is why something more radical needs to happen. Perhaps all renewable energy decisions should be taken centrally by someone who can look at projects objectively?
Countries such as France with a much more centralised planning system (at least for energy) have a history of delivering energy projects – just look at their nuclear power station roll out. Perhaps we should adopt this approach for renewable energy – yes it may result in a backlash, some demonstrations – even middle class riots, however surely it is worth it when it comes to truly looking after the global public interest and the survival of the human race.
sherry
January 5th, 2009
The high cost of gas this past year has seriously destroyed every budget from the average family to the largest of municipalities.The average family went broke at the pump alone, then added to the misery the higher cost of manufacturing and shipping was passed on to us at the checkout for every consumer product. School districts went broke keeping the busses on the road.One police dept in my area required officers to park their car for 15 minutes of every hour just to conserve .Lower prices are not here to stay.OPEC just announced another production cut.With all these bailouts in the billions why doesn’t our nation see the need to bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil? I just read a really interesting new book called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now by Jeff Wilson.I never realized it would only cost the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to charge and drive an electric car. Also,The electricity to charge the car could come from solar or wind generated electricity. If all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota.What powerful resources we have been neglected. The last economic stimulus package cost 168 BILLION and did absolutely nothing to stimulate our economy or create jobs.
Bail America out of its dependence on foreign oil. Wouldn’t that make more sense?