Renewables need planning support - CooperMonday 12 June 2006Local authorities will be urged to support renewable energy measures in their developments, Housing and Planning Minister Yvette Cooper has announced. The request follows a Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) survey of councils that found many were adopting new renewable requirements in their planning. The request for more local authorities to follow suit will formally appear in the new planning policy guidance on climate change, due later this year. "We need to seize on new development as an opportunity not a threat. It is time to rethink the way we build. It is time to rethink the way we design our homes and communities, if we are to build communities for the future that are truly sustainable,” commented Yvette Cooper at the TCPA / Renewable Energy Association conference. "It is patently absurd that you should be able to put a satellite dish up on your house but should have to wrestle with the planning process for small scale microgeneration which is no more obtrusive. We want far more microgeneration to be treated as permitted development," she added. |
To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.greenconsumerguide.com/