Planning red tape to be ripped up

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) The government aims to speed up cumbersome planning decisions on major infrastructure projects, including nuclear power stations and wind farms, to fight global warming and boost the economy.

Communities and Local Government Minister Ruth Kelly will present parliament with her proposals in a White Paper today, hailing them as the most thorough overhaul of the planning system in decades.

But opponents say the government's real aim is to bypass environmental objections to controversial schemes.

''If you take a major infrastructure project like Terminal 5 at Heathrow, that took seven years to go through the planning application process,'' Kelly told BBC radio.

''It had to be considered under 37 different applications, seven different pieces of legislation. Local people find that an incredibly difficult system to manage,'' she added.

She will propose creation of an Independent Planning Commission to have the final say in all but the most sensitive projects and the principle of ''presumption in favour'' of major projects as long as they conform to a declared national need.

It could take years off planning applications and clear away one of the major obstacles to private investment in new nuclear power stations.

Environmentalists fear the planning policy paper will strip away the protection currently provided and lead to a rash of developments from road to retail, airport, power and waste disposal projects including nuclear waste.

They say there could be strong legal challenges to projects if the government's declaration of national need was deemed to be trying to override environmental protection measures like the EU's Habitat Directive that demand impact assessments.

''The planning White Paper will give the green light to massive new developments while stripping away opportunities for affected communities or the wider public to input on the decisions,'' said Hugh Ellis of Friends of the Earth.

''This is policy making at its worst -- it will destroy local communities and exacerbate climate change,'' he added.

Planners, on the other hand, welcomed the well-flagged changes to a system that for example delayed Britain's most recent nuclear power station for nearly a decade and is currently holding up several major wind-farm developments.

But it is not just major projects that will be affected.

Kelly said earlier this year the White Paper would also rip up red tape holding up micro-generation applications such as roof-top wind turbines and solar panels as long as they did not provoke major complaints from neighbours.

REUTERS RJ KN1431