PlanningBlog – Brodies LLP

There was an upbeat mood at Scottish Renewables’ Onshore Wind conference in Glasgow this week. And why not? While there was general acknowledgement amongst the speakers that much of the “low hanging fruit” has now been picked, ambitious government targets to 2050 and beyond indicate that there are plenty more rewards to be had, despite the more challenging pool of sites remaining. And with those challenges in mind, there was no shortage of issues to discuss. 

There was a strong theme of engagement throughout the day. Senior representatives from the Consents Unit and SNH urged early and frequent dialogue to ensure a smoother EIA process, and delegates were encouraged to take advantage of an “open door” policy within these organisations.   If not exactly “open”, the door of Highland Council at least seemed to be ajar, as planning officer David Mudie explained the Council’s new guidance on visualisations. Contentious perhaps, but borne out of the Council’s dissatisfaction with developers’ supporting material on a large number of applications. “Could do better” we were told…

For the science fans we were dazzled by the dark arts of noise assessment, and bat surveys, thanks to Hayes McKenzie and FDM Ecology.  In both fields it was interesting to note that even the experts are still learning and developing their techniques.  In fact throughout the day a number of pleas were made for new or better research to be conducted in different contentious areas. As always, the question remains – who will pay?

The radar conundrum reared its head in the afternoon when the new Head of the Consents (and Deployment) team, Simon Cootes, updated the conference on the work of a new committee on which various key stakeholders were represented. Until new technical solutions are funded and comprehensive in cover, debate will continue over the (non) use of suspensive conditions. Various delegates were clearly unhappy about the government’s resistance to this, and the apparent intention to devise a special set of rules within the planning system to deal with a single, albeit tricky, issue.

And last but not least, our own Mr Collar argued that nothing is ever truly new in planning, by reference to the thorny issue of community benefit.  Environmental compensation? Community trust funds? Remember opencast mining? (it’s never gone away…) Those  guys have done it all before.  So it’s reassuring to know that the problems of today are not so very different from the problems (and solutions) 0f the past. Just don’t mention good neighbour agreements….