An amendment has been tabled to the UK’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill seeking to put onshore wind on an equal footing with other energy infrastructure in the English planning system.
Revisions are requested to the Planning Act 2008 that would reinstate onshore wind into the policy framework, along with the removal in local planning rules of certain pre-application barriers to wind farm proposals.
It requests the Secretary of State “revise and republish all relevant national planning guidance” to reflect the restoration of onshore wind in the planning regime and “ensure parity with other renewables and low carbon development”.
This would include removing restrictions to onshore wind development in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the energy National Policy Statements.
The amendment was tabled in the House of Lords by Baroness Hayman with support from Lord Teverson and former Climate Change Committee chairman Lord Deben.
Its stated intention is to provide “a level playing field in planning terms for onshore wind development compared with other forms of development”.
The move follows a separate intervention earlier this week by Alok Sharma MP to amend the Energy Bill in favour of onshore wind in England.
His proposal, backed by several Conservative MPs including former Prime Minister Liz Truss, includes removing wording in NPPF that has effectively blocked any new projects from being approved since introduced in 2015.
Both the Levelling-up and Energy bills are making their way through the various stages of parliamentary approval before being signed off as new legislation.