Planning Minister Nicholas Boles asked whether as societies become richer, they also become more anti-development. That is: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything:
Behold The Self-Righteous BANANA
Roger E.
Bütow ODD MAN OUT Salem-News.com
BANANAs
might be comprehensible to readers as NIMBYs to the nth power.
Think of them as small children who learn early on the immature and
unreasonable power of “NO!” that can stop a parent dead in
their tracks at the mall-----whereas “YES” doesn’t get much of
a reaction.
NIMBYs
are sometimes called LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Use) and
can morph (I didn’t say “evolve”) into the NOPE category
(Nowhere On Planet Earth) ----- NOPEs are kind of like the
meta-amphetamine fueled siblings of steroid-fuelled BANANAs, and both exhibit
rage-filled, paranoid tendencies. Every proposed project is a conspiracy. They
rely on general public distrust of government and corporations as if rocket
fuel.
As
presented in my previous column, many NIMBYs don’t get their way and start
foraging outward within their own local habitat or even adjacent, contiguous
ones. Their mantra is perhaps best summed up in song from Groucho in a Marx
Brothers movie “HORSEFEATHERS”:
“I
don't care what you have to say. It makes no
difference anyway. Whatever it is, I'm
against it!”
The definitions, the lines in people’s minds between DEVELOPMENT and OVER DEVELOPMENT become blurred. Who's to say, how do you measure or define OVER?
This question has become very relevant in the last couple of days:
Is central government giving 'local communities' a 'greater say on planning', then? Someone has seen possible inconsistencies:
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End of hated wind farms that ruin our countryside amid growing backlash over green energy
MINISTERS will call a halt today to the
spread of wind farms across the countryside amid a growing public backlash over
green energy.
The spread of wind farms has sparked
controversy
Local residents will be given far greater powers to block planning approval
for wind turbines.
One senior Tory source said: “This is effectively the end of on-shore wind
farming in Britain. The Prime Minister understands why many people do not want
wind farms on their doorstep; they are often noisy, unsightly and can push down
house prices.”
Eric Pickles’s Department for Communities and Local Government will
announce that planning laws are to be amended so that “consultation with local
communities” is compulsory before wind farm developers can even formally apply
for planning permission
It means local authorities will get powers to block possible developments
early in the planning process.
They will be told planning decisions must “properly reflect the increasing
impact on the landscape and local amenity” as well as taking into account the
“cumulative impact” of increasing numbers of wind turbines.
Energy Minister Michael Fallon said: “We are putting local people at the
heart of decision-making on onshore wind. We are changing the balance to
ensure they are consulted earlier.
Mr Pickles said: “We want to give local communities a greater say on
planning, to give greater weight to the protection of landscape, heritage and
local amenity.”
Is central government giving 'local communities' a 'greater say on planning', then? Someone has seen possible inconsistencies:
Wind farm planning: Crackdown, what crackdown?
Anti-wind farm rhetoric from the government harms the industry and the economy, but it will not stop well-sited developments
07 Jun 2013, 10:34
The small but influential anti-wind farm
cabal in Westminster and the media will have been patting themselves on the
back yesterday over a job well done. Their months of lobbying had apparently
paid off. Ministers were mobilised and planning guidance was tweaked, all in the name of
blocking the development of a cost-effective clean technology that is broadly supported by around two- thirds of the public. A compliant media
completed the job, with correspondents swallowing the line that the Prime
Minister thinks that "if people don't want to have wind farms they don't
have to have them". Reports were duly filed about newly empowered citizens
being given the right to "veto" unwanted wind farms.
And yet closer inspection revealed a
rather more complex story, because not only is this supposed planning crackdown
accompanied by a raft of measures designed to make wind farms more attractive to local communities, it also fails to
include any significant changes to the current planning regime. If the latest
reforms represent success for the opponents of wind farms it could prove to be
a pretty hollow victory.
The reality is far less dramatic than the
headlines suggest. There is no veto on offer to opponents of planned wind farms
and no plans for the kind of local referendums that would be required to enable
such vetoes in the first place. There are no prescriptive planning rules that
would force wind farm developers to comply with buffer zones or categorically
rule out certain areas. In fact, the only substantive change is a new legal
requirement for developers of larger wind farms to consult with local
communities before they lodge a planning application - an approach that is
already best practice across the industry and is regarded by
many developers as an effective means of working with communities and reducing
the likelihood of objections.
Instead, what we have is an attempt by
Conservative ministers to spruce up planning guidance that has been in place
for some time. Local authorities already consider visual impacts, environmental
impacts, and so-called amenity impacts when weighing wind farm planning
applications, just as they consider the impact on heritage sites and the
feedback they receive from the local community. It is hard to see how
yesterday's apparent changes to planning guidance actually change any of these
considerations. Wind farm developers will continue to operate in a largely
unchanged planning environment, while the introduction of more generous
community benefit payments and the government's long overdue effort to
encourage greater levels of community ownership may in fact make it easier for
them to secure even higher levels of public support.
The fact this supposed crackdown lacks any
sort of legislative backbone helps explain why the wind energy industry remains
fairly relaxed about what its opponents regard as an all-out assault on its
future prospects. Obviously the risk remains that the guidance may prove more
draconian than it currently appears, while the bizarre hold anti-green
Conservatives retain over the government means further changes could be imposed
down the line. But at the moment it appears to be a case of as you were for the
industry. As with the negotiations around the Energy Bill and the UK's carbon
budgets it looks as if Lib Dem Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has
lost the media battle, but won the far more important fight over policy.
That said, it would be wrong to be too
cavalier about the real world impact of the new planning policy guidance.
Technically, there may be only limited changes, but the assertion by
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles that "any adverse impact from a wind
farm development [should be] addressed satisfactorily" gives anti-wind
farm campaigners and councils the encouragement and political cover they need
to step up attacks on new projects, regardless of the fact polls show only 11
per cent of people nationally are opposed to wind farms. Moreover, the
continued lack of clarity in the planning guidance and the vocal opposition of
some politicians makes appeals against planning decisions ever more likely,
further pushing up the cost of development and delaying the rollout of clean
energy capacity.
It is this rhetoric that gave anti-green
politicos and editors a reason to celebrate, and it is this rhetoric that again
betrays the disgracefully short term, inconsistent, ideological, and
politically-motivated thinking at the heart of government. Thinking that serves
to damage both the green economy and the wider economy, taking jobs and
investment with it. In orchestrating such an explicit attack on wind farms just
a day after MPs overwhelmingly approved an Energy Bill designed to drive
investment in clean energy the Conservative wing of the government has again
sent investors ridiculously mixed signals.
Meanwhile, ministers have risked opening a
Pandora's Box in picking out one energy technology for special treatment
through the planning system. Green groups have already pointedly asked whether people
will be given "vetoes" and offered similar levels of community
benefit payments when they are asked to host fracking wells, nuclear power
plants, or new runways. In fact, pretty much every kind of development begs the
same question: where is my community benefit payment to compensate for the loss
of amenity caused by new housing, new roads, new pylons, and, of course, new power
stations?
Number 10's assertion that the Prime
Minister thinks that "if people don't want to have wind farms they don't
have to have them" might make a good sound bite, but it is truly woeful
policy and staggeringly weak leadership. Taken to its logical conclusion it is
a recipe for a planning policy defined by that amusing acronym BANANA - Build
Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
Planning policy is notoriously
difficult and temperatures will always run high as governments try to balance
local sensitivities with national priorities. But suggesting people can
unilaterally block projects of national importance is not a good precedent to
be setting at a time when new infrastructure is desperately needed to drive the economic recovery, enhance
British competitiveness, and deliver decarbonisation.
No one wants poorly sited wind farms
marring the landscape, least of all the wind energy industry, but we have to
get clean energy from somewhere and we need a consistent planning system for
managing its development.
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