Climate change to take formal role in planning decisions

The government yesterday tabled new amendments as part of the planning bill that would require any national planning policy statements to demonstrate how they will mitigate climate change.

In a move that could have significant repercussions for carbon intensive developments such as airports, road expansion, and low carbon projects such as nuclear power plants and wind farms, the government will be required to detail how its planning policy statements for different types of projects will help mitigate climate change.

These national policy statements will replace Planning Policy Guidance Notes and will require individual planning decisions to be made in line with the guidelines set out under the national policy.

A House of Lords committee will also be set up to scrutinise the national policy statements and ensure that climate change considerations are informing the overall planning strategy.

Communities secretary Hazel Blears said that the amendments would ensure that "climate change is now firmly implanted in this bill" and help accelerate the shift to a low carbon economy.

National policy statements are designed to streamline planning policy by giving local authorities clear guidance on issues such as runways, nuclear power and renewable energy projects, and provide an overarching view of the country's requirements that will replace the practice of reaching strategic infrastructure decisions on a case-by-case basis.

An independent Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) will then determine the detailed and technical merits of larger individual applications after judging them against national policy statements.

Local authorities will also be required to take national policy statements into account when considering smaller projects not overseen by the IPC, although the threshold at which this happens has not yet been decided.

The new system is designed to make it easier for the government to push through more large infrastructure and renewables projects.

It has been broadly welcomed by renewable energy developers, who have seen projects consistently blocked and delayed as a result of planning processes that often appear to give greater weight to local concerns than overriding national renewable energy targets.

According to government figures, enough renewable energy to power one and a half million homes, equivalent to every home in Birmingham, is clogged up in the planning system with some high profile projects having taken between three and five years for a decision to be made.

Planning bill minister John Healey said that the timing of the Bill was vital if the UK is to meet its EU-imposed renewable energy targets. "The planning bill is the key to unlocking the modern green economy and subsequent new jobs and that is why business backs it," he said. " We simply can't create a modern and greener economy using a post war planning system."

However, Andrew Cooper of the Renewable Energy Association (REA) warned that while the changes should make it easier for renewable energy projects to gain planning approval, the government must be careful not to alienate those local communities living close to such projects.

"We want local planning authorities to get benefits from renewables projects – they need to have incentives to do it and that will dampen local opposition," he said.