We’ve said before that proper strategic planning, with good community consultation and environmental assessment, is essential to steer development away from environmentally-damaging options.
That’s why the RSPB and WWF-UK commissioned a report on the Government’s assessments of the draft national policy statements (NPSs) for energy and ports infrastructure. Here’s another three-letter acronym – AoS, for appraisal of sustainability. The Government commissioned consultants to carry out appraisals of the sustainability of all their NPSs. We asked Collingwood Environmental Planning, experts in this type of assessment, to scrutinise them.
You can see the full report and our briefing here, and what Planning magazine said here.
As one MP on the climate change committee noted, the report is pretty scathing of the AoSs. It seems to us that they fall short of the requirements in European law. We’re not the only people to be concerned; Friends of the Earth have picked up the same points and have written in detail to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
So what’s the actual problem? Isn’t this just legal nit-picking?
In short, the key issue is whether the planners have properly considered reasonable alternatives before deciding on the content of the NPS, and therefore whether environmentally-good options have been chosen. For the energy NPSs, this might lead you to ask questions like “What’s the best energy mix for the environment?” or “Is it better to have a plan that steers development to the best places, or one which leaves it to the market?” That second question could apply equally to ports as well.
In fact, the appraisals of the energy NPSs simply ask “Should we have a plan or not?” (or a couple of variations with different levels of detail).
To our way of thinking, that’s a silly question. Parliament has decided there should be a plan – and everyone agreed it was a good idea. What we really want to know is the environmental effects of the things we are planning for – energy infrastructure and ports. Of course, there will be detailed environmental assessments when specific projects are being planned, but now is the time to think strategically to stop environmentally-damaging projects coming forward in the first place.
It's likely that the Government won't make a final decisions on their statements until after the General Election, maybe not until the autumn. We'd like them to start again and do the job properly, and we're prepared to give what help we can to do that.