10th
June
2010
Atmos to meet with Farming Community at Royal Highland Show
Atmos Consulting is looking forward to welcoming the Scottish farming and landowner community to its stand at the forthcoming Royal Highland Show in June.
The company is expert in issues such as planning for renewable energy and the new Government underwritten Feed in Tariff (FIT) which encourages the development of small and medium size schemes, and is keen to discuss with the farming community how they might benefit financially.
Atmos believes that FIT will lead to a different pattern of decentralised renewable electricity generation with a wider distribution of smaller widely dispersed turbines. In Scotland, These are likely to be dealt with as 'local developments' by the planning authorities under the new system.
Atmos Consultants will be at the Show to discuss questions from farmers such as:
- How will planning authorities cope with the deluge of applications for FIT related planning applications?
- Will the Scottish Government's target of supplying 40 per cent of Scotland's energy from renewable sources by 2020 be endangered by new decision-making procedures?
- How will the reformed planning system manage to bring forward FIT schemes when Councils will act as judge and jury on their own decisions? And:
- What can potential developers do to maximise chances of success in planning?
Atmos, which offers expert-level knowledge in optimisation, ecological and planning requirements across a wide array of sustainable development projects, recently warned that, a mere six months from its implementation, there are already signs of Scotland's updated planning system becoming a 'postcode lottery' for developments.
Under the new planning system, local authorities have greater power over so-called 'local developments', which in terms of renewable energy schemes means projects less than 20MW. The impacts of this could be highly significant.
The threat of a 'planning postcode lottery' exists because of the varied processes used by each local authority. Under the new planning system some local authorities, such as South Ayrshire Council, have opted to continue to decide the more contentious planning applications through the traditional committee systems, rather than delegating powers to planning officers. These variations in approach may lead to differences in the types and amounts of developments being permitted across Scotland, with some local authorities leaving it to others to pick up our renewable energy supply.
Considered to be at particular risk are those renewable energy schemes which due to their relative small size, are likely to have low environmental impacts; such schemes include community-led schemes and schemes in and around urban areas to serve industry, which nevertheless may prove contentious in certain circumstances, and be at risk where there is no independent right of appeal.
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