Planning matters

Last week I was lucky to attend the annual FOOTPRINT+ conference which took place just a stone's throw away from our London office. FOOTPRINT+ is a leading net zero and decarbonisation conference that brings together industry professionals across the property sector including developers, architects, designers and engineers.

Although the transition to net-zero remained the central focus of the conference, since FOOTPRINT+ 2024 the industry is operating in a different political and economic context. A new Labour government, a revised NPPF, and the launch of consultation on the new London Plan meant much of this year’s discussion focussed on how national and strategic policy is keeping pace with the race to net-zero by 2050 and how this plays out on the ground.

Several key themes emerged throughout the day; reflecting both progress on the drive towards net-zero and the pressing challenges that remain. This blog seeks to summarise the key messages from the industry and what this means for planning.

One of my strongest takeaways from FOOTPRINT+ was the recognition that the industry views itself as being increasingly in the driver’s seat when it comes to setting ambitious net-zero targets which is in turn shaping and driving policy at the local level. One speaker from the City of London sustainability team noted that emerging exemplary retrofit schemes coming forward in the Square Mile, were helping to shape guidance on retrofit and circularity through innovative design solutions and embodied carbon saving.

As we have already observed, local authorities across London are beginning to introduce supportive and ambitious policies to encourage the re-use of existing buildings and materials to reduce emissions. Attendees at FOOTPRINT+ set out a view that there may be a need for firmer policy within the NPPF and new London Plan.

The revised 2024 NPPF includes stronger references to climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as increased emphasis on design quality, brownfield development, and biodiversity net gain. But when it comes to net zero, many attendees felt it falls short of setting the kind of clear strategic direction that’s urgently sought.

The Towards a new London Plan consultation document published earlier this month reaffirms the Mayor’s commitment to delivering net zero in London by 2030 and a ambition for the next London Plan to go beyond national standards to speed up the transition; with a particular focus on streamlining implementation and avoiding unnecessary delay or cost.

Notwithstanding the momentum displayed by local policy and the industry there is also a growing tension arising from an increasingly fragmented approach to climate policy. FOOTPRINT+ underscored the urgent need for better alignment between national, regional, and local policy to knit together the current patchwork of local guidance and expectations.

Circularity, particularly material reuse, was a major talking point. With a shift in focus from the impacts of operational carbon to embodied carbon there’s growing interest in how planning policy can encourage retention and reuse of existing structures and materials to improve circularity and ultimately reduce embodied carbon.

While London Plan policy, and many LPAs, now require submission of a Circular Economy Statement at the planning stage, FOOTPRINT+ highlighted several innovative tools and platforms facilitating this process—such as material donor and recipient exchanges, and AI-driven building audits.

Several local authorities are now developing validation checklists that require applicants to show how material reuse has been considered—a trend we expect to see spread beyond London. The NPPF is still relatively silent on the issue, but the industry clearly sees material reuse as central to net zero delivery.

The key message here was that material reuse needs to be considered in the early stages of the design process to have a clear understanding of a building’s makeup; and also allow collaboration with neighbouring design teams to avoid circular economy practices happening in silos. There is also a role for the GLA and Local Authorities to develop a framework to facilitate material exchanges across the capital.

Decarbonising heat was a hot topic at this year’s conference. While these systems offer significant potential, particularly in densely developed areas like London, there are still planning-related uncertainties around how they will be delivered and funded, safeguarding for future connection, and how they could be retrofitted into existing settlements.

Some attendees noted that policy updates to reflect the role of decentralised energy and local grid coordination may be needed.

The City of London, a front-runner in decarbonisation and retrofit first policy, featured prominently in discussions. Its extensive stock of post-war concrete office buildings presents a prime opportunity for retrofit. As commercial lease lengths shrink and occupier needs shift toward flexibility and ESG credentials, the City’s approach to adaptive reuse and refurbishment was seen as becoming more relevant. The City has embraced this challenge, encouraging developers to prioritise retrofit over rebuild, while balancing this with heritage and other sustainability and technical objectives.

Throughout the day it was interesting to hear about the novel approaches and technologies which the industry is adopting to help the development industry in its drive towards net zero. However, there was recurring message that net-zero policy continues to lack definition and a joined up approach at a national, strategic and local level which may be frustrating some of these efforts.

From our project work across London and research into the policy context we have seen some emerging examples of clear policies emerging, for example through the London Plan, and that we look forward to reviewing how the new Labour Government may influence the direction of travel over the coming years.

As the UK moves away from large coal and gas power-stations that had built in measures to regulate the flow of energy on to the national grid, in favour of low and zero-carbon sources that can have peaks and troughs of output, Battery Energy Storage Systems (‘BESS’) are important to ensure that the maximum amount of energy generated is utilised. The decarbonisation of the energy sector is an important part of our just transition away from carbon rich energy sources and provides environmental and economic benefits, such as clean and reliable energy at low cost to customers.

Anyone involved in the renewable energy industry will know firsthand the nature of the rapidly evolving technology and the challenges this presents for applicants and decision makers. The time elapsed from the submission of a planning application, to planning permission being granted and to construction of the development commencing can mean that the technology has moved on such that schemes need to be varied before implementation. Often the BESS ‘kit’ that has planning permission is no longer available on the market or new and improved ‘kit’ is now available.  To that end, it would be beneficial to find a consistent way of managing this that enables the control of consented development schemes without requiring new applications to deal with relatively minor but potentially still material changes to layout or the dimensions of the BESS ‘kit’.

The Scottish Government has highlighted the role of planning conditions for energy schemes by publishing their standard ‘consent conditions’ for consideration in terms of onshore wind Section 36 consents (electricity generating stations over 50MW). Within this, there is a standard condition (set out in full later in this blog) in respect of energy storage facilities associated with a wind farm and a condition for micro-siting that could be applied/adapted for BESS schemes. Lichfields believes such an approach would be suitable for planning applications relating to BESS schemes of less than 50MW granted by Planning Authorities as well as larger Section 36 consents from the Scottish Government.

From our experience working on renewable energy projects, non-material variation (‘NMV’) applications are often utilised to secure amendments to permissions when there are no appropriate conditions against which to introduce changes. However, what is considered to be a ‘non-material’ amendment will vary from council to council. Please note that there are no minor material amendment applications in Scotland. To this end, conditions that provide a degree of flexibility but also provide the local authority with control would be beneficial.

At a time when local authority planner capacity is stretched, we believe that well-crafted planning conditions can provide appropriate control and comfort to the local authority whilst still allowing the developer to account for the changing nature of BESS “kit” without the need for new applications. With this in mind, we set out the following conditions, the use of any one of them could build in necessary flexibility:

While there has been a move away from conditions which list out approved drawings as planning permissions now include schedules, a condition which lists out the approved drawings provides inbuilt flexibility as Section 42 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (comparable to a Section 73 application in England) allows for applications for non-compliance with conditions attached to a planning permission to be made. In practice, this means that an application could be made to swap approved drawings for new drawings for an already consented development. Most importantly, a Section 42 application can consider ‘material’ changes.

Below is the proposed standard condition (10) from the Scottish Government for onshore wind farms, which we believe could be utilised widely for BESS developments.  Not all standalone BESS schemes will be EIA developments, and this condition should be amended accordingly by removing the text which is bold where EIA does not apply.  There will also be an amendment to the “Reason” in such circumstances, but this could be achieved by replacing ‘the EIA Report’ with ‘the application’ as shown below.

 

Even where details have been submitted as part of a detailed application, these are often subject to change before implementation.  This condition or a version of it would allow changes to the BESS ‘kit’ to be assessed and approved by planning authorities after detailed permission was granted, reflecting the nature of these developments.

 

We have in fact encountered a version of this condition attached to a BESS planning permission and found it to work very well. Discharge of condition applications are material considerations, and the example condition secures control for the local authority while ensuring there is flexibility for the developer should some external kit need to be altered.

 

Below is the proposed standard condition from the Scottish Government for onshore wind farms regarding micro-siting, which we believe could be amended for BESS developments. We have deleted the text that would not apply to BESS developments to leave an acceptable potential condition.

Following on from this and set out below is an adapted condition that we have seen utilised on other renewable energy projects that would do a similar job.

‘BESS containers, buildings, compounds, areas of hardstanding, the internal road network and access shall be constructed in accordance with the Approved Layout. A variation of the indicated position of any BESS Containers or other development infrastructure detailed in the Approved Layout shall be submitted to and approved in writing with the planning authority. The position will only be acceptable where it is compatible with the other conditions attached to the permission’.

These potential conditions reflect the fact that BESS developments are practical developments, often in close proximity to existing substantial pieces of infrastructure (electricity substations, pylons, etc). As such, once the principle of development has been established and assuming all other matters (e.g., visual, noise, drainage, etc.) are acceptable, variations should be acceptable within set parameters.

Flexible conditions are a more consistent and transparent way to manage potential variations to consented BESS schemes compared to NMV applications. They can also accommodate material changes. This is important as we consider it is unreasonable to expect completely new applications for minor/moderate changes just because there are no suitable conditions to do this, when the principle of development has been established. In a worst-case scenario, this could lead to a perpetual cycle of application, permission, and non-implementation due to changes to the ‘kit’.

We would encourage all applicants for planning permission to engage the local authority regarding suitable conditions. We would also encourage case officers to familiarise themselves with the day-to-day realities of BESS projects in the way this has been done for Wind Energy projects and build in flexibility to conditions even where it has not been explicitly requested. Conditions must reflect that the BESS units applied for can quickly become outdated technology and/or may not be procurable and implementable when construction is scheduled. Inevitably, there will be variations in size and the efficient siting of new ‘kit’, which would mean it does not match exactly with the consented scheme.  This should not preclude the development coming forward and should not necessarily result in the need for a new planning application.

Lichfields’ Edinburgh offices work with BESS developers all over Scotland and have an excellent track record in gaining planning permissions and collaborating with existing commissions to enable development.

If you want to discuss an energy project, please get in touch.