The planning system has generally been  successful in forestalling the majority of planning applications for windfarms, particularly in recent years. However, the Government's recent  Green Paper - available from  Government's Green Paper on Planning - and comments on planning issues in  its Energy Review have given rise to serious fears about its intentions

	It appears that there is to be a constitutional change to devolve responsibility for planning to the English Regions, in much the same way as already happens in Wales and Scotland. This is likely to undermine the rights of local communities to raise objections to schemes which affect them. However the decisive rejection of regionalisation by the North East "region" has put a brake on this for the time being
	"Large infrastructure projects" are to be determined at national level, and it seems likely that windfarms of more than 150MW Installed Capacity will be determined by ministers. However for the moment the existing limit of 50MW under the Electricity Act remains the standard
	The current system whereby developers may appeal against a planning decision which goes against them, but local communities cannot also appeal is likely to be retained, despite strong protests from a wide range of conservation and environmental groups.

 

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Environmental Impact Assessments

The Royal Town Planning Institute has published a set of Planning Practice Standards for Environmental Impact Assessments This document, which gives detailed guidelines for   EIAs, which are normally required for windfarm applications. It can be viewed at and downloaded from:

http://www.rtpi.org.uk/resources/publications/environment/eia/#top

PPS22 Planning Policy Guideline 22 - Renewable Energy. Consultation paper published 4 November 2003