INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING – WHY SHOULD LOCAL
AUTHORITIES JOIN IN? David Brock
David Brock is a Consultant Solicitor at Keystone Law. He is a leading planning lawyer, and projects include Canary Wharf, Kings Cross, Whatley Quarry and Kettering East. He acted for the host authorities – Bedford Borough Council and Central Bedfordshire Council - on Rookery South waste to energy facility, the first Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project to go through the new system. He is a member of the National Infrastructure Planning Association and the immediate past chair of the Law Society’s Planning & Environmental Law Committee.
He writes a blog –
www.thedavidbrockblog.com – on planning and planning law and can be contacted on
david.brock@
keystonelaw.co.uk
“Local authorities’ property and political interests can be affected by nationally significant infrastructure projects. The new system gives local authorities enhanced opportunities, over and above the general public, to influence the decision, but they need to be seized.”
The new national infrastructure plan- ning system is now well under way. (Planning Act 2008, amended Localism Act 2011). It was conceived to remove the political element from projects such as new power stations, airports and railways. But one of its effects is also to remove decision making on some proj- ects which would have been in the gift of local authorities and transfer it to cen- tral government. Originally, the decision was given to the Infrastructure Planning Commission, but the coalition govern- ment felt that was undemocratic and amended the system in April 2012, giv- ing the actual decision to the Secretary of State. Infrastructure includes airports, gas storage, hazardous waste facilities
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and waste water treatment plants, all of which are highly controversial. In ad- dition, there is now some attraction for waste treatment plants which generate electricity and windfarms above 50MW so as to fall under the new regime, rather than conventional planning.
The new system can also give compul- sory purchase powers to the promoter, which includes the CPO of local author- ity land.
Examples of current schemes going through the new system include Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset, Port Blyth Biomass Plant in Northum- berland, the East Northants Resource Management Facility (this application by Augean PLC includes disposal of low level nuclear waste), the Able Marine En- ergy Park on the Humber, windfarms in Kent and Wales and several rail projects.
Local authorities will normally have some sort of political or planning view on such projects. In addition, if they have land affected they will want to safeguard value. The new system gives
them enhanced opportunities, over and above the general public, to influence the decision, but they need to be seized. Of course, this also means that resources and skills need to be allocated. But it is in the nature of nationally significant infrastructure projects that they do not come through very often, so local authorities will find it difficult to build up the skill base internally. The procedural rules are (unhelpfully) split among sever- al statutory instruments and the process is largely conducted by way of written representations, though it is possible to make a case for oral hearings on some aspects. There must be an oral hearing if land is to be compulsorily purchased and one or more persons request a compulsory acquisition hearing in accor- dance with the procedures.
Firstly, local authorities have the oppor- tunity to submit a local impact report. There is nothing prescribed about its content. The promoter will almost certainly have submitted an environ- mental statement and the idea is not to duplicate that. The authority also has rights as an interested party to submit
THE TERRIER - Summer 2012
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