"It's about our local community
Community Renewable Energy: A Policy Campaign?
Posted Thursday, October 15, 2009
E-mail this page 
Printer-friendly page
At its October meeting, the Peak District National Park Authority agreed to circulate before Christmas a draft of the proposed Local Development Framework (LDF), to replace the old Structure and Local Plans. We are reliably informed that the LDF is the single most important policy document, setting the rules among many others for “community renewable energy”. In other words, such capital projects as an anaerobic digester. SY is concerned on four grounds. First, the process is very long; in the worst case there might not be a conclusive outcome until 2011. Second, it might get mixed up with the parallel work on the Regional Plan. Third, the draft loads decisions against AD (treating the resource as waste) and arbitrarily insists everything must be ‘small’, ‘very small’ or ‘micro’. Fourth and perhaps most importantly, there is no policy for community based ventures – commercial and community propositions are addressed together. So, subject to a committee decision, SY might well campaign to get a purpose-designed CRE policy into the consultation draft. Your thoughts are welcome – contact john@youatt.co.uk.
