I seem to be living in a number of parallel universes right now. I chaired a conference last week on Sustainable Development - Securing our Low Carbon Future.
The conference was held in the wake of the government announcing six new draft National Policy Statements (NPSs) to guide planning decisions on energy infrastructure, including ten sites named as potentially suitable for new nuclear plants, and a framework for the development of clean coal.
Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband (pictured) laid before Parliament draft texts promising (and I quote from the release) "faster and fairer planning decisions on new energy infrastructure" being brought "a step closer today as setting out the national need for a low carbon secure energy mix".
The draft National Policy Statements (NPS) published so far are designed to be "a crucial part of reforms that will remove unnecessary planning delays facing large energy proposals.
They will be the basis on which individual planning decisions are made from next March by the new Infrastructure Planning Commission".
Well ! I guess anything which assists with the diversification of our energy supply has to be good news. These "top-down" proposals are to be wholly welcomed and let's fervently hope they survive the election and get implemented.
But, as with all other current large scale infrastructure proposals currently on the stocks, these measures are being launched into an environment of massive political uncertainty (and this, whoever is returned to power in the general election of next year) .
All these things take huge amounts of time. If a future government does not follow through on these proposals, some other radical solution will be required.
Under localism, we could potentially free up local authorities to achieve the same levels of energy supply through "bottom up" provision. The fact of the matter is, however, this would be more difficult to achieve than this current government's centralised plan. There would have to be really major incentives to deliver what the UK needs.
It is certainly clear that to meet our low carbon energy challenge we will need significantly more generating capacity in the longer term. One third of that larger future generating capacity must be consented and built over the next 15 years to 2025.
If the Infrastructure Planning Commission does not survive, then I just cannot see how this is to be achieved in more-for-less Britain without unleashing the entrepreneurial potential of local authorities. And therein lies a whole new series of difficulties...
Leave a comment
What a user pic? Get a Gravatar!