Offshore NSIPs can shrink

Angus Walker picture-13This entry reports on regulations allowing plans for nationally significant infrastructure projects to be at a smaller scale offshore.

OK, it's been a fairly slow news week so far, so I am covering the laying of regulations that allow application plans to be at a smaller scale when covering offshore areas. It does promise to get very exciting tomorrow and Friday - for infrastructure planning geeks, at least - with three decisions due.

The regulations can be found here and will come into force on 1 October. They simply exempt plans entirely within the 'UK marine area' from the requirement to have a scale of at least 1:2500.

The reasoning behind this is that a plan showing existing development in the sea is just going to be a featureless blue rectangle. There is thus little point in having dozens of large-scale sheets covering a proposed offshore wind farm site, for example, that are all the same and whose main effect is to use up blue ink cartridges. 

I had a quick look for some actual examples of these, but promoters have generally risked breaching the scale requirement on the grounds that the documentation is still 'satisfactory', and they have also added a bit of interest by using the admiralty navigation charts. Here's one from the now consented Galloper wind farm.

The regulations thus simply remove the risk of having to plead satisfactoriness for a non-compliance on plan scales.

This tweak is one of the suite of measures that form part of the '2014 review' of nationally significant infrastructure planning. It is the eighth one in the table at the end of the document and was to be done 'by October' - no complaints on the timing, then.

A quick summary of what's been done so far:

  1. publication of a 'pre-application prospectus' of what the Planning Inspectorate can do for prospective applicants;
  2. a start on examples of best practice documents - there's still just one on the list, a consultation report;
  3. delaying the publication of early advice - details of this is in the pre-application prospectus;
  4. allowing two inspectors, allowing early appointment of inspectors and amendments to the post-decision change process are in the Infrastructure Bill, which will complete its committee stage in the House of Lords on 14 October;
  5. publishing application documents immediately; and
  6. the further streamlining of consents and more on the post-decision change process are the subject of the 'technical consultation on planning' issued at the end of July.

The next measure in the list according to the timescales is advice on drafting development consent orders (DCOs), due in October.

Tomorrow is the deadline for a decision on the North Killingholme power station application, and on Friday it is the turn of the Clocaenog onshore wind farm and the Thames Tideway Tunnel. Watch this space!