P-04-473 Wind Farm Public Inquiry Financial Support – Correspondence from the petitioner to the Committee, 22.06.2013
Additional
information for Petitions Committee
below
1. Reply to my letter sent 3rd March - from Mr Kris
Hawkins
2. Copy email from me ( John Day) with additional question to Mr
Kris Hawkins and First Minister
3. Petitions Committee
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1. Reply
to my letter sent 3rd March
Ein cyf/Our ref TO/JG/00469/13
21 March 2013
Dear Mr Day
I refer to your letter of 3 March to the Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM,
First Minister, concerning a public inquiry into an application for
wind farm development in Powys.
The UK Government has responsibility for making decisions on
applications for wind energy development generating over 50
megawatts. The Welsh Government has no formal role in the decision
making process for such projects.
All of the planning fee for such applications is passed to the
Planning Inspectorate’s National Infrastructure Directorate,
and although the relevant local planning authority is expected to
undertake substantial work to support the Inspectorate’s
determination of these applications, and potentially bear extensive
costs as a result, it receives no fee from the applicant and no
financial support from either the UK Government, or the Planning
Inspectorate.
Despite the fact that these applications are made to the UK
Government, the Welsh Government has allocated funding from the
Planning Improvement Fund, which is targeted at making improvements
in the delivery of planning services at the local level, to go some
way to reimbursing the costs experienced by local planning
authorities when responding to consultation by the Planning
Inspectorate on such cases.
When responding to consultation by the Inspectorate, the local
planning authority should make its views on the application known,
on the basis of national and local policy and material
considerations. Where the recommendation is to refuse, then an
inquiry is automatically generated; the local planning authority
will have to defend this recommendation at a public inquiry and
will also have to bear the costs of the inquiry. Powys County
Council would have been aware of these procedures.
The decision to object to the wind farm developments in question is
a matter exclusively for Powys County Council. In addition, the
funding of public inquiries and the distribution of planning fees
paid by major wind farm developers remain non-devolved matters, and
your concerns about the costs borne by Powys County Council in
relation to its recommendations, are matters for the Council, and
the UK Government to consider respectively.
Yours sincerely
Kris Hawkins
Resources and Delivery Branch
Planning Division
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2. Copy
email from me (John Day) with an additional question to Mr Kris
Hawkins and First Minister Carwyn Jones
sent
22nd June2013
For the attention of Rt. Hon Carwyn Jones AM First Minister and
Mr
Kris Hawkins, Resources and Delivery Branch, Planning
Division
National Assembly for Wales
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff
CF99
1N
Thank you for your letter referenced TO/JG/00469/13 (in reply to
my
letter dated 3rd March 2013)
I have one further question, is it within your power to
provide the
funding to help with the costs incurred by Powys County Council
with
the Public Inquiry?
regards
John Day
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3. Petitions Committee
I thank the staff in the Petitions Committee for their help whilst setting up this petition .
Your website states that a petition is a way of asking the National
Assembly to consider any issue, problem or proposal that the
Assembly has the power to do something about. The Assembly
has set up a Petitions Committee to consider admissible petitions
and to decide what action should be taken.
In this case the Welsh Government representative appears to be saying in his letter (copy above) that it is not within their power, and yet the Presiding Officer must have decided that it does have the power by allowing the petition.
Those
who support the petition believe that the Welsh Government take
local views into account whilst making decisions that affect all of
us, now I'm not so sure.
The role and power of the Petitions Committee and the process may require reviewing to ensure that the electorate are not mis-led into thinking that they do have influence.
John Day 22nd June 2013