129: when will the Infrastructure Planning Commission receive an application?

This is entry number 129, first published on 5 May 2010, of a blog on the implementation of the Planning Act 2008. Click here for a link to the whole blog. If you would like to be notified when the blog is updated, with links sent by email, click here.

Today's entry considers when the first application to the Infrastructure Planning Commission is likely to be made.

The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) has been open for applications for energy and transport projects since 1 March.  Indeed, applications for such projects must be made to it - there is no alternative.  Nevertheless there has yet to be an application, and there is unlikely to be one for at least a month more.

The first application was due to be a Highways Agency road scheme in Kent - above the IPC threshold because it would involve a junction with a trunk road.  The application was to have been made on 1 April, but it has been put on hold because the housing scheme that the road was to serve has been put on hold.  The project no longer appears on the list of anticipated projects.

What then became the first expected application was an energy from waste (EfW) project in Bedfordshire from Covanta - an IPC project because it would have a generating capacity of 65MW, above the 50MW threshold in the Planning Act.  Although that application was the first - and to date only - project to start the formal pre-application consultation of named organisations and the general public, it has been delayed because some further pre-application consultation had to take place and is now listed for mid July.

What are now the two applications that are expected first are a windfarm in Carmarthenshire and a biomass plant in Northumberland, both being promoted by RES.  The expected dates for the applications of 1 June now cannot be met, bowever, because a minimum of 28 days' pre-application consultation must be kicked off by means of a notice in the London Gazette.  No such notice has yet appeared for either project, and 1 June is only 26 days away.

Three further Welsh projects are earmarked for applications on 1 July - an overhead power line on wood poles in Neath, at the 132kV threshold for such projects, a 64MW windfarm in Denbighshire and a 77MW waste combustion plant at Merthyr Tydfil.  Interestingly, the IPC has declared that the first of these does not require environmental impact assessment (EIA), having issued a so-called 'screening opinion' on the matter.  The vast majority of IPC projects, being nationally significant by definition, are expected to require EIA, but here is the first example of one that does not.  The IPC must agree that it does not, however - an applicant cannot decide on its own.

If these five applications slip, then we are back to the Bedfordshire EfW project being first again.  I suspect that is what will happen.

Why are the applications not being made to the IPC?  There is obviously some general uncertainty because of tomorrow's election, but the primary reason is more likely to be on the facts of each project.  Anticipated application dates usually slip by a month or two as unforeseen problems crop up.  It is only because the IPC has been publishing the expected dates that we know they have slipped.  Previously, there was no public record of when project applications were due to be made, and promoters could quietly adjust the dates without anyone noticing.  Despite what it may seem, the IPC practice of publishing dates is more likely to advance application dates than delay them.

Coming next - what the election result means for the Planning Act regime.