Mr Pickles announced that he will be extending his policy of pulling in decisions regarding renewable energy projects for a further 12 months. The announcement means that he is retaining the option to take the final decision to consent or refuse all onshore wind farms in England personally.
The decision by Mr Pickles to take such action was first announced in October 2013 with the aim of reviewing how planning guidance on renewable energy projects was being implemented. So far, using recovery powers, Mr Pickles has pulled in 33 wind projects consisting of a mix of individual wind turbines and larger projects, representing 93 percent of all wind energy capacity currently at appeal stage in England.
Furthermore, two local authorities have been blocked from giving consent to three onshore wind projects after the Secretary of State removed or threatened to remove their decision-making powers. Of the 33 projects pulled in by Mr Pickles, only 8 have been decided with all but one refused. Two of the projects had previously been recommended for approval by the Planning Inspectorate, a non-executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government. One of these decisions is currently under judicial review.
““Telling local authorities that they can’t decide on wind applications runs counter to the principles of the Localism Act, and introducing more delays is anti-business” said RenewableUK’s Deputy Chief Executive Maf Smith. “The extension is a costly mistake for the UK. I expect the official planning bodies for this country will be up in arms that the planning system is being subjugated to political whim in this way.”
Mr Smith added that the intervention by Mr Pickles has led to further delays for developers, two project withdrawals and a court case. Many of the projects called in by Pickles since June still haven’t had decisions indicating that he’s got more than enough on his plate without adding to it, and disrupting more projects.
“Now is the time to let the planning system do its job - not to throw further confusion and delay into it with these anti-localism measures” Smith continued. “His actions are also threatening the livelihoods of the nearly 19,000 people who owe their jobs to the UK’s onshore wind industry.”
RenewableUK believes that Pickles is ‘playing politics’ with UK energy policy and that onshore wind developers will rightly be concerned about his continued undermining of confidence in the planning system by taking such decisions himself.
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