Blimey, everyone is just so twitchy in fin de siècle Britain!
Last week I reported my own perceived disconnect between the hugely-top-down draft National Policy Statements (NPS's) for energy and ports (under this government's framework for energy) and the realpolitik of the actual temperature on the ground.
This is pretty well borne out by the Conservative's Shadow Energy Minister Greg Clark MP indicating his support for the concept of NPS's to speed up the planning process for major infrastructure projects, whilst remaining committed to abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) as the determining body.
How on earth can we have it both ways, do you think?
As is my wont, when I got the chance a few days ago, I quizzed a senior spokesperson (Conservative) from the LGA last week about whether the Conservatives were genuinely serious about empowering local authorities.
His retort was "when there are buckets of the brown stuff being ladled about it may well be - finally - that the local authorities' moment has come". Well! This was an eloquent explication of what I have been suspecting for some time.
The central administration will seek out an elite number of local authorities who can be trusted, such as the London Boroughs of Wandsworth or Barnet or the Home Counties led by Kent and Essex, and work with them to ensure certainty of planning for infrastructure projects, provided of course that certain rewards are then forthcoming.
Now, this week, the Municipal Journal reports the green lobby's concerns over the new NPS's and - apparently - that councils could be caught up in a row between the Government and environmental groups over plans to fast-track major planning projects (although the NPS on nuclear power stations is the only statement to identify specific sites, I guess that this was an inevitability).
The NPSs are now subject to consultation until February and the House of Commons Select Committees have also announced plans to scrutinise the policies in January. But, going back to the disconnect, since it is highly unlikely the final policies will be published before the next election (and with most commentators still expecting a change of Government, despite that rogue Scottish result) industry will look to the Conservatives to maintain greater certainty in the planning process through the local authorities.
There will be an elite number of clever local authorities who will see the siting of some of these plants as an opportunity rather than a threat: it is on these that we must pin our hopes for diversification of the energy supply. It is no wonder that we are all rather unsettled.
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