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Today's entry reports on the completion of special
parliamentary procedure for the first application to be given
consent under the Planning Act 2008.
Once upon a time, a company called Covanta Energy applied for
permission to build an energy from waste plant at Rookery South
near Bedford - on 5 August 2010, in fact. This was the first
application to be accepted by the then Infrastructure Planning
Commission (IPC) (but not the first to be made - it rejected the
first application made to it, for an electric line in south
Wales).
434 days later - 1 year, 2 months and 8 days - and following all
the procedures for accepting, making representations on, examining
and deciding applications under the Planning Act, the IPC gave
consent to the project. That was 13 October 2011.
Unfortunately for Covanta, the Development Consent Order (DCO)
authorising the project contained provisions to acquire land from a
local authority compulsorily, and it had objected. This triggered
'special parliamentary procedure' under the Planning Act,
where the DCO was referred to parliament for a second process of
objecting ('petitioning'), considering of objections and
making a recommendation - yes, doing the whole thing again.
503 days after that - 1 year, 4 months and 14 days - on 27
February 2013, the committee that considered the petitions is to
publish its report, which will say that the DCO should be made
unamended, thereby ending special parliamentary procedure. The fact
that no changes were made at all is a little galling, but I
understand that an agreement was made between the petitioners and
the promoter about contributing to a proposed waterway, so the
effect of SPP was not entirely zero.
Analysis
Why did it take so long? Here is a short chronology of the
Rookery South SPP, for the record:
13 Oct 11 - DCO made by the IPC
29 Nov 11 - DCO laid before Parliament by Chris Huhne, inviting
petitions
19 Dec 11 - 39 petitions made by deadline (two each by 17
parish councils and two local authorities, one by Waste Recycling
Group (WRG))
10 Jan 12 - 78 'memorials' made by the government and
Covanta (i.e. each of them against each petition) arguing that the
petitions should not be accepted (we drafted the government
ones)
08 Mar 12 - hearing into whether petitioners should be accepted
as having sufficient standing takes place
27 May 12 - possibility of annulling the order at this stage
expires
25 Jun 12 - joint committee of three MPs (Brian Binley, Bill
Esterson and Paul Uppal) and three peers (Lords Dear, Faulkner and
Geddes) appointed
04 Jul 12 - committee first meets - Brian Binley MP appointed
chair
13 Jul 12 - committee decides to consider full application,
not just SPP trigger issue
24 Oct 12 - committee starts sitting on Wednesdays to hear
petitions
12 Dec 12 - committee finishes hearing evidence from
petitioners after seven hearings
19 Dec 12 - committee dismisses three petitions as having
'no case to answer' and limits the other two to one issue
(see transcript, right at the end)
13 Feb 13 - committee satisfied that final issue dealt
with
27 Feb 13 - committee to lay its report before both Houses of
Parliament
The future
On the very same day, the report stage of the Growth and
Infrastructure Bill will start, although it won't reach the
infrastructure provisions until 12 March. The Bill will remove the
particular trigger that triggered SPP for Rookery South and will
limit parliamentary consideration to the trigger issue only (i.e.
the 13 July decision above will no longer be possible), but it
won't remove all of the triggers. Indeed, there are rumours
that it will add in a new trigger relating to inland waterways.
The Growth and Infrastructure Bill is to have its third reading
on 20 March. It will then need to go back to the Commons to agree
the amendments made in the Lords, but after that it will be ready
for Her Majesty's signature. The SPP reduction provisions are
planned to apply to any applications made after 18 October
2012.
So after all that, all that has happened is a long delay and a
bit of cash changing hands. It has, however, prompted the
government to legislate to reduce SPP (choosing not to do so during
the Localism Bill, a concrete example had to come along - thank
you, Covanta!). SPP lives, however, fully applying to existing
applications, and applying in a limited way to future ones. We
shall see if it occupies any honourable members' time in the
future.
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