As promised, some further information from the DPEA Stakeholders’ meeting last Tuesday which Rachel and Aileen attended on behalf of SAS. Only the Agenda items raised by SAS are detailed below.
MAPS
SAS had raised the need for a national wind farm map at the previous meeting and other stakeholders had offered help to access funding – to no avail! We were then directed to a map which is produced by https://latenemaps.com/ which we thought would be useful to have in the DPEA Core Documents Library. This map is apparently made available, free of charge, to anyone attending the All Energy Conference (attended by the Renewables Industry) but despite there being many “Industry” people on the Stakeholders’ Forum, no-one had ever told us about this map! According to DPEA it would be of no use to Reporters and they refused to entertain it.
At this point another member from Historic Environment Scotland alerted us to an interactive map produced by the Scottish Parliament which no-one else apparently had any knowledge of, including us. We found it difficult to believe that DPEA didn’t know about its existence either. https://spice-spotlight.scot/2023/05/18/renewable-energy-map-of-scotland/
“The data is sourced from the UK Government’s Renewable Energy Planning Database and is meant to “track the progress of UK renewable electricity projects over 150 kiloWatts(kW) through the planning system. It provides as accurate and comprehensive a snapshot as possible of projects, and of progress across the different technology sectors.”
Unfortunately it is not very accurate as we discovered upon examination. Many smaller wind farms and single turbines are missing on the map and the information provided for each development is largely inaccurate.
Aileen complained to the Scottish Parliament and received a reply telling her to take it up with the UK Government as it was their fault the data was out of date and inaccurate and not the Scottish Government’s! She wrote back to tell them that Planning was devolved to Scotland and the vast majority of onshore wind turbines were located in Scotland so it was their responsibility to make sure the map they were hosting on their website was accurate. If decision makers are relying on this map they are being severely misled. How can the Scottish Government know how many turbines they have in the country and how much they are generating? How can they know they are in “the right place” if they don’t even know where those places are? The Scottish Government should be making sure all local authorities keep their wind farm data up to date and then collecting it from them to generate an accurate map. Aileen has written to the UK Gov. and will take this further once she receives their reply.
INQUIRIES
One of our members raised concerns about IT difficulties when she was trying to gain access to take part in an Inquiry. She had been left in the virtual “waiting room” without being admitted and didn’t know where to call for help.
DPEA said anyone experiencing difficulties can call their number or use the email address on their website to seek help in these circumstances and they will try to make this clearer in future.
SAS PETITION TO THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT
Part three of the SAS Petition “appointing an independent advocate to ensure that local participants are not bullied and intimidated during public inquiries” was discussed at the meeting, as directed by the new Planning Minister in his correspondence to the Petitions’ Committee.
Planning Aid Scotland has offered to refer any community groups seeking legal assistance with participating in Inquiries, to the Faculty of Advocates Free Legal Services Unit. A referral must be made by advice agencies, accredited by the Faculty and is available to individuals and community groups who cannot afford to pay for that advice or representation and where legal aid or other funding is not available. However, the problem with relying on this service is that every application has to be screened before it can be advanced for proper representation. Often screening is done by one person while the representation is handed to another. Not everyone has the ability to present their case in the best light and the people whose job it is to screen cases take what they see at face value and do not usually do any investigation themselves. This could result in many worthwhile cases being rejected.
The solution, as we mentioned in our response to the Planning Minister’s submission, would be to fund a panel of contributing lawyers from whom a selection could be made if the group meets certain criteria.
Four cost effective solutions are proposed.
• Advertise for, and constitute a Panel of contributory lawyers.
Appointments would be for a maximum of two years.
Make required public consultation meaningful, following provision
of accurate and detailed information, with required/recorded public
comment as required by the Scottish Government’s commitment to
the Aarhus Convention.
• Impose independent scrutiny, by a legally qualified person, of the
content and manner of the public consultation exercise in each
case, producing an independent report as part of the
Environmental Report.
• Where requested, provide informed advocacy/legal assistance to
community groups to help prepare for and participate in public
inquiries or hearings.
These suggestions could be easily financed through an increase of
planning application fees for major developments which are still much
cheaper in Scotland than those in England.
The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates will be contacted by one of the lawyers on the Stakeholders’ Forum for more information.
PLANNING CONDITIONS
Unfortunately, due to lack of time, once again, we didn’t manage to discuss the item which Rachel had on the Agenda Devising standard planning conditions with public participation. This has been tabled for the next meeting.
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