Solar PV Panels (Planning)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate on such an important subject for his constituents. It is a subject that he has raised with me in writing and in person, and now, rightly and properly, on the Floor of the House.

I hope I will be able to reassure my hon. Friend that there are already guidelines in place and policies in the national planning policy framework that are sufficient to support the kinds of decisions he seeks. I hope he will also understand that I cannot refer to, or make a judgment on, any particular application under consideration by any planning authority.

The policies in the national planning policy framework are clear that there is no excuse for putting solar farms in the wrong places. The framework is clear that applications for renewable energy developments, such as solar farms, should be approved only if the impact, including the impact on the landscape—the visual and the cumulative impact—is or can be made acceptable. That is a very high test. It should be approved only if the impact can be made acceptable. Where significant development is necessary on agricultural land, the national planning policy framework is equally clear that local planning authorities should seek to use areas of poorer quality in preference to that of a higher quality. Where land is designated at a relatively high grade it should not be preferred for the siting of such developments.

In addition, the framework is clear that planning should take account of the different roles and character of different areas. It should protect areas with a landscape designation. It should recognise the character and beauty of the countryside and support the rural communities within it. It is very important, given the particular countryside he was talking about, that areas of outstanding natural beauty have the highest status of protection in relation to landscape and scenic beauty. The framework is clear that great weight should be given to conserving them. I therefore encourage my hon. Friend to draw the attention of planning officers in his council to those elements of the framework, the clarity and the strength with which those policies are phrased, and encourage them to believe that they can assist them in their decisions.

[Mr Newmark]

I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying, and many of his points reflect the excellent advice given by the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) in his letter to me in October. The reality, however, is that when speaking to Braintree district councillors—notwithstanding that it is the highest grade agricultural land, grade 2, in Essex—they say that as long as a biodiversity requirement is met, they are still minded, because, unfortunately, of the current regulations, to give planning permission for at least the first 40 acres. To me and to many of my constituents, that is unacceptable.

[Nick Boles]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that this is planning policy: the national planning policy framework is the framework of national planning policy. Every planning decision by every planning authority in the land must abide by the policies in the framework. I do not care what he has been advised by others; I am the planning Minister, and I am advising him that this is the policy that the Government have put through the House, and we intend it to be applied in every planning decision by every planning authority in the land.

Nevertheless, because we shared some of my hon. Friend’s concerns about how these policies were being applied, we issued further planning practice guidance on renewable and low-carbon energy. To ensure that these decisions reflected the environmental balance expected by the framework and that the views of local people were listened to, we published guidance last summer that made some things very clear. We reiterated that the need for renewable energy did not automatically override environmental protections and local communities’ planning concerns. The guidance made it clear that the deployment of large-scale farms could have a negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in undulating landscapes, and set out a number of factors that a local council would need to consider before making a determination.

We expect local authorities to encourage the effective use of previously developed land, and if a proposal involves greenfield land, the guidance clearly states that it should allow for continued agricultural use, but only if it has already met all the other environmental and landscape policy criteria that are set out in the framework and which are reiterated, underlined and expanded on in the new planning guidance. I and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), believe that current policy and guidance gives every planning authority in the land the basis on which to take fully into account the landscape and agricultural quality of land.

[Mr Newmark]

I appreciate everything that my hon. Friend is saying, but unfortunately money talks, and this has become big business. Many planning officers are nervous, as are local councillors, that if they reject an application and it is appealed, local taxpayers might have to foot the bill. They tend to take a much more cautious—even prudent, dare I say it—approach towards planning and to err on the side of caution by saying, “Actually, we are minded to give permission”, because they do not want to risk an appeal by a wealthy business man or company.

[Nick Boles]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has asked that question, because it is important that authorities across the land understand that when they make a decision that has policy support, in the national planning policy framework, and guidance support, in planning guidance, and if it is appealed, they have every right, if they are successful in resisting that appeal, to ask for their costs to be covered. They should feel confident in their decisions, where those decisions follow the policy that I have set out and which I believe is crystal clear. I should also add that it would be a brave planning officer or inspector who dismissed a letter from a Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change in the terms my hon. Friend suggested he had been advised they had to do.

I encourage my hon. Friend, if he is concerned about a particular decision, to familiarise himself with the criteria for call-in and recovery where an application goes to appeal. If he is concerned that a particular application raises issues of national policy importance—and are not, therefore, just of local importance—and in some other way meets the criteria for call-in, which are published in a written ministerial statement, he can write to the Secretary of State and request that the decision be called in for ministerial decision. That is open to him at any point. If he decides not to do that, and were the local authority to refuse an application, and were it then appealed, again he could write to the Secretary of State and request that the decision be recovered, so that it can be made by the Secretary of State, not a planning inspector. Those two opportunities are open to him.

My hon. Friend will, I am sure, be aware that there has recently been a recovery of a decision on a substantial solar farm, partly because this is a relatively new area of policy. We have been trying to strike the right balance, which is why we issued the new planning guidance, and we are keen for cases to reflect both the policy in the framework and that new guidance. My hon. Friend should not feel timid or shy about availing himself of the opportunities offered to him by both the call-in and the recovery policies.

I hope that what I have said will go some way towards reassuring my hon. Friend—and, perhaps equally important, his constituents—that they have not been abandoned, and that there is plenty of policy support for the respecting, valuing and protection of the beautiful Constable landscape that my hon. Friend described so lyrically.

Question put and agreed to.