Planning Bill
12:00 pm
Phil Jones: From the point of view of a company like my own—I should stress that it is pretty much exclusively a network organisation; we move other people’s power around for them to the good people who want to use it—the acid test of the policy statement would be to ask if it is able to change the proposal that people would make. I used to do that kind of work in the organisation, planning and laying-out of networks.
The test at the drafting and consultation stages is whether it gives guidance on what are effectively the network planner’s key choices. We are fairly old technology—there is nothing brand new about the kind of assets that we put in place—so the straight question about whether or not we should be there has pretty much already been answered. Until we find a way to broadcast power without some kind of physical infrastructure something will have to be there. The questions are not so much, “Shall we have it or shan’t we?”—if there is a requirement for power we shall have to be there in some form—but about overhead or underground. Policy guidance on where those kind of things are acceptable and where they are not would substantially aid the process. By way of illustration, we are running a fairly complicated process at the moment with our colleagues at National Grid. That is just an example, but it is probably the best example I can think of.
We did detailed planning on well over 40 different scenarios for a particular route to a particular site, which is the kind of guidance that we would expect from a national policy statement, for example. It would help us say, “Don’t bother with nos. 37 and 42. They are no-hopers because the policy statement is quite clear.” What we do not want is something that says, “It needs to be very carefully considered,” because I like to think that we always do that. To the extent that it can influence the choices made by the planners, that will be the acid test.
May I tell you what I think they should say? As I said, we are quite neutral as an organisation. Lots of our assets are above ground and lots are below ground; some of it is a long way from the sub-station and some is close. As a generality, we are indifferent to those choices. Guiding the choices in practice would be my observation. I hope that does not seem as if I am evading the question; I am trying to answer it effectively.