Planning reforms introduced by the government this morning will enable measures to speed up planning decisions on key infrastructure including renewable energy developments.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, introduced to parliament today, is part of the UK government’s Plan for Change and aims to help it deliver on pledges made during the general election last year, including building new houses and the infrastructure necessary to make Britain a clean energy superpower.
Deputy prime minister and secretary of state for housing Angela Rayner said the bill will “unleash seismic reforms” that will, amongst other things, “make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect billpayers”.
Measures included in the bill will introduce a system of ‘strategic planning’ across England, known as spatial development strategies. In October last year, ministers asked the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to create a strategic spatial energy plan (SSEP), the first for energy, out to 2050.
The strategic planning introduced under the bill will see mayors or local authorities create plans to ensure the level of building across the country meets the UK’s needs.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will also speed up the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime, streamlining the consultation requirements and updating the policies against which infrastructure applications are assessed every five years.
The government has also changed how decisions on NSIPs can be challenged, reducing the number of times ‘meritless’ cases can be brought against a project from three to one.
Scottish planning reforms
While the NSIP regime, as legislated by the Planning Act 2008, sets how energy infrastructure is consented in England and Wales, Scottish ministers’ consenting process is governed by the Electricity Act 1989.
Inefficient and outdated features of the Electricity Act 1989 cause delays that ultimately result in lengthy timescales to determine applications to install essential electricity infrastructure. Given the cost of curtailment in Scotland, where the grid cannot export the amount of clean energy generated by the country’s wind farms, these delays could result in curtailment costs reaching £8 billion a year by the late 2020s.
As such, reforms aimed at modernising the consenting regime for onshore electricity infrastructure in Scotland were proposed late last year and were passed yesterday (10 March). The package of reforms will be delivered through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
Discounted consumer bills
Yesterday, it was also revealed that, as part of the bill, households within 500m of new electricity pylons across Great Britain will receive electricity bill reductions of up to £250 a year.
As part of the Plan for Change, the government also announced today that £1.8 billion in government support will be allocated to local authorities and social housing providers to fund ‘energy saving upgrades’ including insulation, double glazing, solar panels and heat pumps.
The Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund will deliver up to £1.29 billion of funding to 144 projects across England with the Warm Homes: Local Grant allocating £500 million to 73 projects across 270 local authorities over the next three years.
Grid connections reform
The reforms to the process by which clean energy projects connect to the electricity grid, formulated by NESO and to which Ofgem has given a ‘minded-to approve’ response, are also pitched within the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
The government says the new ‘first ready, first connected’ system will unlock growth with £200 billion of investment.
The bill also includes measures to streamline the process of installing EV charging infrastructure and the cap and floor funding mechanism for long-duration energy storage assets.
