Two Cheers For Climate Change Planning Policy, But Real Tests Remain

18 December 2007

‘While recognising the key role of planning in action on climate change, the Government appears to have accepted that there are legitimate landscape constraints on wind turbine developments.’

This was the reaction of Andrea Davies, Senior Campaigner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) [1], to the Planning Policy Statement: Planning and Climate Change, published yesterday (Monday) by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Andrea Davies continued:

‘Climate change poses a serious environmental threat, but we must be careful about how we develop renewable energy in the countryside to minimise its landscape impacts. The Government must know how strongly people feel about the visual impacts of wind turbines on landscapes up and down the country. The new policy on climate change rightly upholds the ability of local planners to set out how local landscapes and townscapes should be protected [2]. Councillors on planning committees retain their responsibility to assess the contribution of renewable energy schemes to regional targets against their impact on local landscapes.

‘However, under the new policy, councils can only set targets for renewable, decentralised and low-carbon energy in new developments if they can show they are “viable” [3]. This could be bad news for on-site small-scale renewable technologies because developers may by-pass them by suggesting that the property’s owners buy green electricity instead.’

Andrea Davies concluded:

‘The Government’s new planning policy for climate change moves the spotlight onto climate change and recognises the need for action. However, it is disappointing that the policy will not encourage on-site domestic microgeneration despite the Government’s recognition of its important role in improving energy security and reducing carbon emissions. More can and should be done to minimise the environmental footprint of new development.’

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England. We advocate positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, we have 60,000 supporters and a branch in every county. President: Bill Bryson. Patron: Her Majesty The Queen. www.cpre.co.uk

2. Paragraph 22 of the Planning Policy Statement: Planning and Climate Change states that ‘planning authorities should […] ensure any local approach to protecting landscape and townscape is consistent with PPS 22’. Paragraph 7 of Planning Policy Statement 22: Renewable Energy enables local planning authorities to reflect local circumstances in their local development documents. Paragraph 19 states that ‘proposed developments should be assessed using objective descriptive material and analysis wherever possible even though the final decision on the visual and landscape effects will be, to some extent, one made by professional judgment’. This is an improvement on an earlier draft of the PPS on Climate Change which stated that planning authorities should: ‘avoid policies that set stringent requirements for minimising impact on landscape and townscape’ (para. 22).

3. See paragraph 26 of the Planning Policy Statement: Planning and Climate Change.

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