South West Regional Planning Policy

In July 2010, the government abolished Regional Spatial Strategies. The government has stated that the "localism" agenda will replace RSSs - with local people, communities and authorities having greater control over planning in their area.  

Government published its official response to the Communities and Local Government Committee's report on Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies on 23 June 2011. Read the full document here. Regen SW has summarised the key points that could relate to planning for sustainable energy here. 

Development of the draft Regional Spatial Strategy

Regen SW worked closely with the South West Councils (formerly South West Regional Assembly) and Government Office South West to attempt to secure strong policies on sustainable energy within the draft Regional Spatial Strategy. The evidence base which supports the renewable energy policies within the draft RSS can be found in the REvision 2020, REvision 2010 and Carbon Neutral Development Technical reports, which established renewable electricity and heat targets for the region.

An Examination in Public (EiP) was held in 2007 to discuss and test the policies in the draft RSS, where the panel found the evidence base for the sustainable energy policies to be sound. However, on 22 July 2008, the Secretary of State (SoS) published the proposed changes to the draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy, which effectively dismissed the most demanding elements of the proposed RSS policies.

The draft RSS contained Policy G, a proposed requirement that all new and refurbished buildings should meet at least level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (residential buildings) or BREEAM Very Good (commercial buildings), to be achieved primarily through the highest standard of energy efficiency. Policy RE5 proposed that larger scale developments were expected to provide, as a minimum, sufficient on-site renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% from energy use by users of the buildings.

However, the changes proposed by the Secretary of State mean that Policy G was effectively dismissed and no longer sets higher energy standards for new buildings in the south west. Changes to Policy RE5 were expected to stimulate new gas technology and solar water heating, but not site-wide gas or biomass fuelled CHP.

Policies that survived the Secretary of State’s proposed changes included:

• RE1: A 2010 onshore renewable electricity target for the south west of 509 to 611 MWe, broken down by county. To view the county breakdown click here.

• RE1: A 2020 onshore renewable electricity target for the south west of 850 MWe
• RE2: A 2010 offshore renewable electricity target for the south west of 56MWe and a 2020 target of 400MWe
• RE3: A 2010 renewable heat target of 100 MWt and a 2020 target of 500 MWt

On 25 September 2009, the Government Office for the South West announced that further Sustainability Appraisal work around housing numbers needed to be carried-out on the Proposed Changes, the outcome of which was expected in early 2010. This work delayed the final publication of the RSS.  RSSs were then abolished in July 2010.