The Department for Communities and Local Government is today publishing new planning practice guidance for renewable and low carbon energy and, for consultation, reforms to waste planning policy. Both support the Coalition Agreement’s pledge to decentralise power to local people and give local people far more ability to shape the places in which they live. The planning practice guidance and proposed changes to waste planning policy apply to England only.
Planning for Sustainable Waste Management
The planning system ensures that there is adequate provision of new waste management facilities of the right type, in the right place and at the right time. Equally, planning policy should protect the local environment and local amenity by preventing waste facilities being placed in inappropriate locations.
This document will sit alongside the proposed Waste Management Plan for England, which is currently subject to a separate consultation. Waste planning policy was not included in the National Planning Policy Framework.
The new proposed planning policy document streamlines existing policy, using the same principles as for the National Planning Policy Framework, to make it more accessible to the public and other interested parties. In doing so, it takes account of changes to legislation, such as the removal through the Localism Act of the last administration’s unpopular and top-down Regional Strategies.
Moreover, this updated policy strengthens protection for the Green Belt. It removes the reference in the current policy that planning authorities should give significant weight to locational needs and wider environmental and economic benefits when considering waste planning applications in the Green Belt. This means that, under national planning policy, these planning considerations should not be given more significant weight compared to others when planning applications are decided for waste facilities in the Green Belt.
This localist approach brings national waste planning policy into line with the National Planning Policy Framework, which makes clear that most types of new development should only be approved in the Green Belt in very special circumstances, and that Green Belt boundaries should only be altered in exceptional circumstances. This would maintain and enhance the stringent protection against inappropriate development in the Green Belt, in line with the commitment made in the Coalition Agreement.
Planning for renewable and low-carbon energy
The National Planning Policy Framework includes strong protections for the natural and historic environment. Yet, some local communities have genuine concerns that when it comes to developments such as wind turbines and solar farms insufficient weight is being given to environmental considerations like landscape, heritage and local amenity. Our new planning practice guidance will help decisions on green energy get the environmental balance right in line with the Framework. Meeting our energy goals should not be used to justify the wrong development in the wrong location.
A key principle of planning is that it should be genuinely plan-led and empower people to shape their local surroundings. Planning works best when communities themselves have the opportunity to influence the decisions that affect their lives. We have made it plain in the planning practice guidance that the views of local communities should be listened to.
My right honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Eric Pickles) said in his written statement last month on Local Planning and Onshore Wind that action was needed to deliver the environmental balance expected by the National Planning Policy Framework.
The preparation of the planning practice guidance has been informed by a wide range of representations that the Government has received on renewable energy, including the letter of January 2012 to the Prime Minister from one hundred Members of Parliament, and responses to the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Call for Evidence on Onshore Wind.
We are also cancelling today the previous Administration’s ‘Planning for Renewable Energy: A Companion Guide to PPS22’. Those taking planning decisions need to be clear that the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of local communities.
In preparing the planning practice guidance, we have reflected the recommendations of the External Review of Planning Practice Guidance. Because of the urgent need for new guidance on this issue, we are publishing it in advance of the web-based resource for Government Planning Practice Guidance. That web-based resource will be launched in beta test mode for comment this August.
Copies of both documents, and associated waste documents, have been placed in the Library of the House.