Several years ago I went to a very good conference on the potential for renewable energy development in Britain. However, whilst broadly sympathetic to renewables, I still had some hard questions to ask, and, because this was a conference for the converted, I felt regarded as the enemy. Fast forward to the present, and I recently attended an equally good economics discussion. On this occasion, it was my use of expressions like environmental advocacy and planning that seemed to cause a noticeable tremor in the room. Nevertheless, the company was rather better tempered.
The major similarity between the two events was a poor understanding of the role of spatial or land use planning, as distinct from Soviet-style centralised economic or energy planning. Now, as someone with an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning Studies conferred by a university economics department, with over twenty five years' experience of spatial planning and project development, I feel reasonably well equipped to explore this important difference. So let me start with land use planning.
In fact, land use planning in the UK - outside Scotland where its strategic importance is still acknowledged - has been largely abandoned in favour of regional spatial strategies (RSS) and local development frameworks. The RSS are also now in the process of abolition. Incidentally, I support the retention of regional planning albeit with a lighter touch. Meanwhile, council-led local planning has become an essentially administrative process, with the hard skills once identified with the land use planner's profession, including architecture, urban design and engineering, largely outsourced to other agencies and, particularly, consultants.
This erosion of planning by successive governments has led to the increasing inability of local plans to fulfil their most important purpose: to direct development to the most appropriate locations relative to its type and scale whilst having regard to existing infrastructure, or probable investment therein, and comprehensive environmental impact assessments. Such direction is, I would argue, especially important for energy planning, and it is the weakness of the spatial planning system and associated environmental regulation in England, most particularly, which has acted to inhibit the development of renewable energy.
To turn now to centralised economic and energy planning, most ordinary people recognise that, notwithstanding the British - or rather English - political penchant for free market rhetoric over the past thirty or so years, this actually disguises an equally strong commitment to central government control, regardless of which parties happen to be in power. The case of nuclear power illustrates this situation very well, for there would be no development of new capacity if this were left to market forces alone. The recent history of nuclear development in the United States shows that strong government financial support is essential.
However, it is not my intention here to consider the pros and cons of different forms of power generation, but to argue that a spatial plan, ideally encompassing the whole of the British Isles and international connectivity, is needed. By such connectivity, I mean a plan which recognises current supply lines and potential future developments, notably international energy super grids. Such a plan would, of course, have to recognise the vital principle of subsidiarity in order to encourage regional and local ingenuity. Similarly, a coherent and long term national regulatory and incentives-based framework would need to be in place to support appropriate investment.
Is an integrated - economic and spatial - planning scenario for energy generation and supply in Britain of the kind I have described a realistic possibility? Perhaps a better question is: can the UK for reasons of economic security as well as environmental sustainability afford not to take this approach? For the "business as usual scenario", where our national politics of power are essentially left to the power politics of day, is no longer viable in an increasingly internationalised energy market where the forces in operation may not always espouse freedom.
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