Government rejects transmission planning proposals

The government has resisted a push, backed by SSE, to prevent the automatic triggering of public inquiries into plans for overhead power lines in Scotland.

Under the Electricity Act 1989, a local authority objection to a planning application for an overhead line will automatically trigger a public local inquiry (PLI) north of the border.

These local inquiries can be triggered on any grounds, irrespective of the basis of objection, and can add years to the timetable for delivering grid infrastructure according to SSE, which operates the transmission network for the north of Scotland.

Its evidence to the committee which has been scrutinising the government’s Energy Bill, says that the last two inquiries for transmission projects in its area were triggered after local authority planning committees went against the advice of their own planning officers to recommend approval.

Under a proposed amendment to the bill, which concluded the latest stage of its passage through Parliament on Thursday (29 June), decisions on holding inquiries into overhead lines would be handed over to the Scottish Government.

Alan Brown, the Scottish National Party’s Westminster energy spokesperson who tabled the amendment, told the House of Commons that public inquiries were adding two years onto the timetable for delivering grid lines.

He said: “Not having an automatic PLI is a better way of dealing with such scenarios. Critically, the new clause does not prevent a PLI from happening. In many ways, it aligns the system with what happens with the consideration of major onshore windfarms in Scotland at present.”

Brown added that these delays must be removed given plans in the pipeline to add nearly 30GW of offshore wind to the Scottish grid.

Andrew Bowie, junior energy minister, said the government would not accept Brown’s amendment but that it has had “constructive discussions” with the Scottish Government about the problems raised by SSE .

“We want to find a solution,” he said.