The Redhill Aerodrome Case

This may seem way "off piste" so I must explain the context. I chair our Parish Council Planning Committee and, the parish being located in the Metropolitan Green Belt, decisions about a goodly number of planning application hinge upon the potential effects upon the Green Belt. The bringing into force of the National Planning Policy Framework has resulted in many applicants arguing that, in effect, Green Belt protection is now lessened and that much more notice should be taken of a presumption in favour of sustainable development.

The Appeal Court judgement in the Redhill Aerodrome case has been cited in an application that is about to come before us and is a blow in favour of continued protection of the Green Belt.

The judgement hinged on what might appear to be something of an abstruse point - the meaning of the words "any other harm" in paragraph 88 of the NPPF (in the context of "very special circumstances" existing). It had been argued that these words should be interpreted as meaning "any other harm to the Green Belt" rather than "any other harm that is relevant for planning purposes". The Appeal Court judgement comes down on the latter interpretation essentially retaining the interpretation of the guidance previously available through PPG2. This is very good news.

What is also good news in my view is the last sentence of paragraph 35 of the judgement which reads "Thus, far from there being any indication that placing the presumption in favour of sustainable development at the heart of the Framework is intended to effect a change in Green Belt policy, there is a clear statement to the contrary".

Three cheers for the Appeal Court.

Sunday 19 October

Hmm! No sooner had I published my previous post than I came across this: 24% of UK electricity produced by wind. Food for thought?

Germany - Too Successful?

A number of ex-colleagues gathered together the other day - sadly for a funeral - but the talk soon turned to the state of the electricity market, or I should say markets because we strayed into the issue of Germany building new lignite plants. With renewables (some 23% or so of German power production) often base-loading during the day (solar) or in periods of reasonable wind there is a need for back-up generation. Nuclear can't do that and gas in Germany is expensive so lignite plants are kept running as spinning reserve. The result? Germany's CO2 emissions are actually on the rise.This is not a pretty picture; the German's seem to have dug something of a hole for themselves. No to nuclear. No to CCS. No to gas. Is the big German experiment to base an electricity system on renewables about to fail?

The Dreaded Transmission Charges

From way back when I was involved in modelling power station revenues and the like I recall the issue of transmission charges being a significant problem for remote northern-located stations. I must admit that I've rather taken my eye off this particular ball so I was interested to note an article recently suggesting that Scottish Power were not going to enter Longannet PS into the first capacity auction because of "disproportionate transmission charging penalties". This is despite the fact that the latest transmission charging methodology should actually reduce (but not eliminate) the penalty faced by remote stations.

INEOS and Shale

One of my last tasks under the highfalutin' banner of Bawden Consulting Ltd has been to audit a shale gas model being prepared for INEOS.

Now I see that the company has bought a 51% interest in an exploration block in Scotland (which happens to include land around INEOS' Grangemouth refinery and petrochemicals complex). What I find interesting is INEOS' intention to share some of the proceeds with home- and land-owners and communties. It expects to distribute 4% of revenues to home- and land-owners and a further 2% to communities. It claims that the total distributed could amount to as much as £2.5bn over the lifetime of the project.

That's one way to reduce the inevitable anti-shale sentiment.

INEOS is a non-operating partner. The operator is Dart Energy who hold the remaining 49% interest.