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favour of sustainable development, streamlined planning applications and determinations including a 12 month guarantee (including appeals), and processing major applications through a major infrastructure planning system. Potential conflicts with localism remain a concern however, and the interface with environmental permits needs to be simplified and made consistent but, whilst the “devil is in the detail”, this represents a potentially very positive direction of travel. What will be fundamental to finally unravelling this Gordian Knot, however, is the proportion of waste infrastructure developments that will fail to be determined as “major infrastructure”. Under the previous administration’s approach we estimated that over 90% of all developments would remain within the current planning system, with a small number of energy from waste and hazardous waste facilities (the latter being particularly poorly scoped) being determined by the late Infrastructure Planning Commission. A repeat of these categories would not address the “process problem” in this sector.


Another consequence of the shortage of recovery capacity in the UK, worsened by the earlier unsurprising withdrawal of PFI credits, is growth in the export of waste- derived fuels. Many European neighbours, 10 to 15 years ahead of the UK in the development of their waste management systems, are now finding that “domestic” waste minimisation, re-use and increased recycling is reducing the feedstock available for their


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existing energy from waste facilities. Coupled with the increased costs of energy (especially for those with no natural resources of their own, CHP schemes that cannot easily be replaced) lower gate prices (and possibly some marginal pricing) has made the export of waste-derived fuel from the UK an increasingly commercially attractive option. Exports of waste-derived fuels can be expected to grow over the coming months and years but clearly it would be preferable for these materials to be used to offset some of the UK’s dependency on foreign energy imports; 10 to 17% of UK electricity could be derived from waste by 2020 according to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. The well publicised energy gap that the UK will face in 2012 to 2015 may have been pushed back by the recession but I don’t expect that many exploiting “localism” will call for change, at least not until the lights go out!


This emerging trend with waste-derived fuels has of course been witnessed previously with recyclable materials; exports from the UK have more than doubled since 2002 and this helps us meet more challenging recycling and landfill diversion targets. However, it is also the case that processing these materials generates inward investment, increases employment, drives technology and innovation and therefore creates value; but currently too little of it in the UK. The reality is that this growing drawdown on the UK’s resources has to be arrested and reversed.

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