CBI slams energy planning delays

The CBI will today accuse the government of dragging its feet over reforms to the planning systems designed to accelerate the rollout of renewable and nuclear energy projects, arguing that it is undermining investor confidence in the energy sector.

The employers' association is to release its second Climate Change Tracker report, which measures progress towards a low-carbon economy against 24 key indicators.

It found that only four of the indicators - progress on international climate change negotiations, levels of carbon reporting, the development of new nuclear power plants and expansion of carbon trading - remain on track to deliver a low-carbon economy and accuses the government of delivering only "patchy" progress towards meeting its climate change goals over the past six months.

In particular, it warns that delays in implementing the new Planning Act are threatening investments in low-carbon energy projects to expand renewables capacity, upgrade the grid and deliver a new fleet of nuclear reactors and carbon capture plants.

"Businesses are not going to commit to building the new wind, nuclear and clean coal power stations that will be needed to keep the lights on if they think the goal posts are going to get shifted further down the line," said CBI director-general Richard Lambert. "That is why we need the government to publish the long-promised National Policy Statements as soon as possible."

Under the recently passed planning act, the government is obliged to produce National Policy Statements that are meant to make the national case for new infrastructure projects and inform local planning decisions. The statements are intended to make it easier for nationally significant projects - such as wind farm developments - to secure planning permission.

The CBI report echoes recent complaints from the British Wind Energy Association that the average onshore wind farm waits 12 months to receive a planning decision, while only five to six per cent of project proposals receive a planning decision within the statutory 16-week timeframe.

The government did introduce new rules in the Planning Act that allow it to iverturn local authority decisions on wind farms that are larger than 50MW, but there are currently only two projects in the UK planning system large enough to qualify for a decision from Whitehall.

The CBI is now calling on the government to deliver national policy statements on nuclear and renewables within the next six months.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said that the government intended to release the statements before the end of the year.

"The new planning system that we are putting into place will mean much faster decisions on the big investments to meet the energy needs of the future," she said. "The NPSs are a big part of that and we must get them right, but we do intend to publish them within the next six months."

The Climate Change Tracker report also calls for the introduction of a new green loan scheme to help fund energy efficiency improvements to homes and offices, and urges more businesses to comply with voluntary carbon reporting guidelines.