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Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, recently unveiled (9 November) a new approach to ensuring that the planning system can deliver the infrastructure needed to make a reality of the Government's legally binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions and to meet its objectives of sourcing 15% of total energy from renewables by 2020 and 30% of electricity supply coming from renewable technologies by 2020.
A new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has been established which will be able to determine major proposals (e.g. nuclear power station, wind farms larger than 50 MW capacity) taking development plans into account and following a national framework established by Parliament; an approach criticised by some as bypassing accountable local planning authorities.
The national framework will be set out in National Policy Statements. It is planned to issue 12 of them. On 9 November the first 6 were issued for consultation. The key draft Statements relate to
- Overarching Energy Considerations
- Nuclear Policy
- Renewable Energy Infrastructure
Statements have also been issued for consultation relating to fossil fuels, gas storage and electricity networks. Consultation runs until 22nd February 2010
The overarching Government objectives are
- To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050
- To achieve security of energy supply
- To create an electricity grid with more capacity and the ability to manage fluctuations in supply and demand
- To strive to eliminate fuel poverty
- To encourage sustainable energy development whilst protecting the environment.
Planning Director David Holmes commented
"This is an ambitious approach to an issue which has to be of serious
concern to all thinking people. It will be most interesting to see how the
new approach handles the land use conflicts that are likely to occur and
how the interests of the environment are balanced with the needs for
new energy infrastructure".
For detailed advice on the Planning System with regards to climate change please contact David Holmes on 01608 645116 or david@adamsholmes.co.uk.
Date of news item upload : Fri Jan 15 2010
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