In a report looking in to the first two and a half years of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the committee said that “planning decisions could be speeded up”.
The report says: “Investors could be deterred if wind energy projects continue to spend upward of two years in the planning system.”
Submitting evidence to the committee, Renewable UK stated that the average time between recovery of a planning application and a decision being made was seven months.
The CLGC noted that some wind energy projects have spent more than two years in the planning system due to the communities secretary Eric Pickles’ intervention.
It recommended that the government should take steps to speed up the process, and allocate “more resources to the team supporting the secretary of state in planning decisions”.
The report also highlighted that the communities secretary Eric Pickles approved only 28.6 per cent of renewable energy projects in 2013.
The Confederation Of British Industry stated that such intervention is “having a serious impact on investor confidence in the renewable energy sector and indicates a lack of trust by government in the planning profession to interpret policy and guidance appropriately”.
Renewable UK’s deputy chief executive, Maf Smith, said: “A cross-party committee of MPs has acknowledged the damage caused by the Secretary of State’s continued interventions in wind projects.
“What the CLGC doesn’t call out though is the blatant political motivation for Mr Pickles’ interference.
“He needs to be reined in to stop stifling new developments; he’s sacrificing energy security, new jobs and much-needed local investment in the most cost-effective form of renewable energy that we have”.
The report adds that thew committee “saw evidence that the secretary of state was more likely to refuse renewal energy applications than those for other types of development” but that there was no “convincing evidence” these decisions had been made “contrary to the NPPF”.