Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Where local people not only do not mind local wind farms but quite like them, and the local council decides that that is their democratic decision, giving them more power over the placement of local turbines is the right approach. This is about making sure that we have support locally.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Under the planning system there are separate land use categories for houses, industry and retail but there is no separate land use category entitled “energy generation”. This is an accident of history, because when electricity was first generated it was done only by the Crown using Crown prerogative. The reason local authorities are struggling with all the planning applications for wind farms and solar farms is that they do not have this separate land use category. Will the Minister be kind enough to agree to meet me and the Minister responsible for local government to see how that category could be introduced, because it would better facilitate and regulate the flow of planning applications through all the district councils up and down the land?

[Matthew Hancock]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and the relevant Minister from the Department for Communities and Local Government, because of course planning issues are directly for that Department. While there may not be a separate category within the planning rules at one level, there is guidance explaining how the rules should be applied in terms of energy generation and transmission, so we just have to make sure that the details are right.