Role of the town and country planning system in controlling development of electricity generating installations

As all current methods of electricity generation imply the use of land and produce a range of environmental impacts it is inevitable that the provisions of the various town and country planning acts shall be brought to bear on decisions about the development of new power generation facilities. The author sets out the fundamentals of the system and seeks to explain the roles of central and local government in the decision making process. The essentially political nature of decision making is described as resting on a range of legislative requirements, central government advice, locally generated and centrally approved plans and informal policy. The purpose and role of land use zoning is discussed as are regional policy variations which result from historical processes, local political attitudes and the impact of various environmental pressure groups. Examples are used to illustrate the way the planning system has dealt with the development of power generating facilities. The changing nature of power generation, particularly the growth of pressure for the development of renewable technologies is discussed and the response of the planning system to these developments is examined.