Sustainable planning could be a step back for waste

When the coalition government was installed, the waste management community understandably focused on how waste planning would be impacted by the localism agenda espoused in the Conservative policy paper ‘Open Source Planning' – planning delays being identified as the pinch point blocking the timely delivery of treatment infrastructure. However, another commitment in the coalition's programme for government appears to have passed by with little comment. Under Defra's programme, the government “will create a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system”.

It is likely that the onus will fall further down the planning chain, putting the burden on developers to demonstrate the sustainability credentials of their applications

 
Gev Eduljee, director of external affairs, SITA UK

The thinking behind this announcement is rather opaque, at least as it relates to our sector. A sustainability appraisal is a statutory requirement for Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Documents under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 – both of which deal with waste-related planning matters. Subsequently, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive of 2001 came into force, reinforcing the need for sustainability appraisal of RSSs and many LDDs.

Looking at the totality of the planning process, from the development of strategic plans to the delivery of these plans through site-specific planning applications, the key issue is at which point(s) in the process is a sustainability appraisal best applied, and in what form. In a plan-led system, the focus is understandably on the front-end of the planning chain – if a strategic plan is shown to be sustainable, then it is an unnecessary duplication of effort to require each individual site-specific plan-led application to also demonstrate that it is sustainable. Therefore, if RSSs and LDDs were here to stay, it could be argued that a sustainability check has already been built into the planning system, making the coalition government's announcement a bit of a non-event.

Burden

However, the coalition government's intention is to remove regional planning structures, throwing into doubt the future and legitimacy of RSSs and LDDs, which have hitherto been the locus for sustainability appraisal. In the absence of an alternative but equivalent hook on which to hang a sustainability appraisal, it is likely that the onus will fall further down the planning chain, putting the burden on developers to demonstrate the sustainability credentials of their applications.

A methodology for this has yet to be developed, but an analogy with the concept of the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) can be drawn.

As with BPEO, sustainability appraisal at site-specific level contains two conceptual weaknesses in its implicit reference to a single option having validity over both the short and long term. There is often no single measure or package of measures which represents a “best option”, either in environmental or sustainability terms. Various combinations of unit processes can produce similar social, environmental and economic outcomes. The preferred option is generally one that can be delivered in the prevailing political climate. Furthermore, what might be preferred in the short term could be obsolete or ineffective in the long term, not least because of changes in waste composition.

BPEO had evolved into a highly technical exercise, necessitated by the need to quantify harm to the environment. As with BPEO, the complexity of the numerical analysis will mitigate against the ready assimilation of sustainability appraisal into the local decision-making process. Given the political dimension of decision-making by local planning committees, it is debatable whether a sustainability appraisal will be seen as decisive in granting planning permission for a waste facility. Regardless of whether “the most sustainable option” has been identified through a robust process of assessment, an alternative that attracts greater political acceptability will tend to win out.

Modelling

It is a moot point as to whether the complexity of present-day waste management systems can be fully captured through sustainability modelling. Consequently, a sustainability appraisal will be inherently open to challenge, as well as to accusations that it can be manipulated as an “objectors' charter”. Indeed, harking back to BPEO, one environmental group actively encouraged the public to “use BPEO to your advantage” in order to prevent the construction of incinerators.

Government needs to think clearly and carefully before acting on this particular commitment. Those of us with long memories remember the chaos caused by the requirement for site-specific applications to prove that they represented the BPEO. PPS10, during the course of its development from PPG10, recognised the weakness of applying BPEO to site-specific applications, and rightly removed this requirement, confining it in a plan-led system to strategic planning. Going back to that type of thinking is the last thing our industry needs.