Making progress on policy
13.2 Planning progress
There has been progress on making it easier to get planning permission for renewable- energy projects, including local wind farms. Planning had been a huge barrier for projects from domestic systems and up.
In 2004, Planning Policy Statement 22 (PPS22) for the first time set a positive planning framework for renewable energy. It said,
• Renewable-energy developments should be capable of being accommodated throughout England in locations where the technology is viable and environ- mental, economic and social impacts can be addressed satisfactorily.
• Regional spatial strategies and local development documents should contain policies designed to promote and encourage the development of renewable- energy resources. Regional planning bodies and local planning authorities should recognise the full range of renewable-energy sources.
• At the local level, planning authorities should set out the criteria that will be applied in assessing applications for planning permission for renewable-energy projects. Planning policies should not rule out or constrain the development of renewable-energy technologies.
• The wider environmental and economic benefits of all proposals for renewable- energy projects, whatever their scale, are material considerations that should be given significant weight in planning decisions.
• Regional planning bodies and local planning authorities should not make assumptions about the technical and commercial feasibility of renewable-energy projects.
• Planning authorities should not reject planning applications for energy projects simply because the level of output is small.
• Local planning authorities, regional stakeholders and local strategic partnerships should foster community involvement in renewable-energy projects.
Making progress on policy 123 For the first time, PPS22 insisted that the environmental benefits of renewables and local energy projects were a good in themselves and should have a positive impact on the planning decision.
The guidance was helpful but local energy projects hit frequent barriers in gaining planning permission. As a result, the government published additional guidance to underpin and extend its support for local energy generation, making it a fundamental requirement for all new development in a revision of Planning Policy Statement 1 (PPS1).
Published in 2007, PPS1 – on planning and climate change – took low-carbon generation principles more fully into account, including not just renewable-energy projects but all local energy generation that would reduce carbon emissions overall.
This PPS encourages regional planning bodies (RPBs), as part of their approach to managing performance on carbon emissions, to produce regional trajectories for the expected carbon performance of new residential and commercial development, based on ‘average units/amounts of floor space’.
PPS1 said in its ‘Key Planning Guidance’ that all planning authorities should prepare and deliver spatial strategies that make a full contribution to delivering the government’s climate-change programme and energy policies.
In preparing a regional spatial strategy, RPBs ‘should work with all stakeholders in the region and alongside their constituent planning authorities to develop a realistic and responsible approach to addressing climate change’.
That would include ‘ensuring the spatial strategy is in line with applicable national targets, in particular for cutting carbon emissions, and with regional targets on climate change’. It would also require regional planning authorities to:
• ‘ensure opportunities for renewable and low-carbon sources of energy supply and supporting infrastructure are maximised’; and
• ‘set regional targets for renewable energy in line with PPS22’.
What is more, local planning authorities ‘should assess their area’s potential for accommodating renewable and low-carbon technologies, including micro- renewables to be secured in new residential, commercial or industrial development and pay particular attention to opportunities for utilizing and expanding existing decentralized energy supply systems, and fostering the development of new oppor- tunities for decentralized energy from renewable and low-carbon energy sources to supply proposed and existing development’.
The planning authority should look favourably on proposals for renewable energy, and it should not require applicants to demonstrate either the overall need for renew- able energy or for a particular proposal for renewable energy to be sited in a particular location.
In an important development, PPS1 said that planning authorities should ‘ensure that a significant proportion of the energy supply of substantial new development is gained on-site and renewably and/or from a decentralized, renewable or low-carbon, energy supply and should consider the potential for on-site renewable energy supplies to meet wider needs’.
124 Local energy
This change arises from the pioneering work of the London Borough of Merton. Merton Council was first to introduce a new planning policy that required developers to build renewable energy or energy efficiency into the fabric of new factories, ware- houses and offices. If the proposed building is larger than 1 000 m2and is not located
in a conservation area, council planners will expect photovoltaic panels, solar water heaters or other energy-producing equipment to be installed. The council will expect this equipment to reduce the occupant’s carbon footprint by 10 per cent.
The policy emerged from the council’s review of its Unitary Development Plan. In spite of challenges from objectors who claimed that the policy would make it too costly for developers to construct commercial buildings in the borough, it was strongly supported by the appointed inspector. The idea quickly began to spread. The Mayor of London included a similar policy in his Plan for London, and several other London boroughs redrafted their Unitary Development Plans to follow Merton’s lead. The first building in Merton to be designed and built to comply with the policy was a 3 000-m2light-industrial and storage unit in Durnsford Road. But an early showcase
is a new office building planned for the site of the Odeon Cinema in Wimbledon Broadway. Here the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has been granted permission to develop 5 000 m2of office space for its own use, provided that it installs
renewable-energy systems of sufficient capacity in the building. This will also give the building engineers an incentive to minimize the energy use of the building.
The London Borough of Merton was applauded by Friends of the Earth for ‘most innovative action’ in its introduction of the policy. And, although developers initially argued that it was impossible and of dubious legality, the policy came successfully through all its challenges. Similar policies have already been adopted by upwards of 50 councils and the provisions of PPS1 will require a similar provision by all planning authorities.