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Ministers are considering weakening the rights of communities to object to new pylons or wind farms in their neighbourhoods as they race to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030.
The UK government is exploring overhauling planning rules so that claimants can only apply for judicial reviews of large infrastructure projects once in each case. It wants to tackle the “blockers, delayers and obstructionists” that energy secretary Ed Miliband has argued are getting in the way of reform.
It set out the proposals in a wide-ranging plan published on Friday on how to reach its manifesto goal of “clean” power by 2030. The government envisages unabated gas-fired power stations supplying less than 5 per cent of annual electricity generation, with the rest coming from low-carbon sources. That compares to around 30 per cent from gas this year.
Miliband said the plan could only be met with “big, bold change” and the government was “embarking on the most ambitious reforms to our energy system in generations”.
The clean power goal will require a huge buildout of new wind and solar farms as well as the pylons and cables needed to move electricity around, including roughly 1,000km of electricity networks on land.
But ministers are concerned these could be derailed by local communities challenging the projects in the courts. Residents in several areas are protesting against plans for new pylons, with concerns ranging from the environmental impact to the effect on house prices.
Opponents often apply for judicial reviews of projects that have been granted planning approval, meaning they can get a judge to review the process and potentially quash the permission. In some cases, campaigners have applied repeatedly against the same projects.
In its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the government says there is a case for finding ways to “streamline” the process to ensure it does not “unduly slow down vital infrastructure development”.
It adds: “For example, this could include changing the rules so that claimants in each case only have one attempt to seek permission for judicial review.
“Any changes that we decide to make will strike the right balance between reducing delays to infrastructure projects and maintaining access to justice in line with our domestic and international legal obligations.”
The proposals follow a review of legal challenges to large infrastructure projects, published in October, by Lord Charles Banner KC. He recommended changes including “fewer bites of the cherry for claimants seeking permission to bring a judicial review”.
But any change is likely to be controversial given the strength of feeling in some communities.
The government’s clean power action plan broadly accepts recommendations made last month by the state-owned National Energy System Operator on which technologies are needed to reach the 2030 target.
It aims to have 43-50 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed in 2030, up from about 15GW now, as well as about 27-29 GW of onshore wind, and 45-47 GW of solar power. The shift will require roughly £40bn of energy investment per year, it adds.
To try and hit those targets, ministers are preparing a record-breaking auction of renewable subsidy contracts next year. They are also considering changing the terms of subsidy contracts so that they run longer than the current typical 15 years.
The move could be controversial as the contracts are funded via consumer energy bills. However, the government argues longer contracts could bring down overall project costs by reducing developers’ risk.
To try and boost local support for clean energy, the government says it will ensure communities “directly benefit” from hosting infrastructure. This could involve funding for community schemes, as well as jobs and lower bills.
The clean power action plan comes at the same time as a separate report from the government’s spending watchdog highlighted a rural-urban divide in the rollout of charge-points for electric vehicles.
Only 15 per cent of public charge-points in England are in rural areas, according to the National Audit Office. Its report called for “greater focus on where charge-points are located and how accessible they are”.