Memorandum from the Planning Officers'
Society
BACKGROUND
1. The Planning Officers' Society (POS)
represents chief and lead officers with land use-related responsibilities
within Local Authorities in England and Wales. Society comprises
an Executive Committee and a number of Topic Groups with particular
responsibilities, for example Development Plans, Development Control,
Sustainability etc. This memorandum is given on behalf of POS
through its Minerals and Waste Topic Group, which looks after
this specialised area of Planning.
2. Two witnesses will appear to take up
the Committee's invitation to give oral evidence. These are Andrew
Price who Chairs the Topic Group, and Roger Hockney who Chairs
the Waste Planning Advisory Group, one of 5 such PAG's supporting
the Topic Group. Andrew Price is Head of Planning at Dorset County
Council, and Roger Hockney is Head of Sustainable Development
with Leicestershire County Council. Both carry wide environment
portfolios, including their Authority responsibilities for waste
planning and waste disposal/management.
3. On 31 October 2000 both gave evidence
to the House of Commons Environment Committee Inquiry on "Delivering
Sustainable Waste Management", at which point we made clear
our concerns that Waste Strategy 2000 did not yet provide a clear
lead on how the requirements of the Landfill Directive are to
be achieved. We have been pleased to assist the Cabinet Office
in their process of preparing "Waste Not, Want Not"
but again have doubts and concerns that this serious issue of
public policy is still not being properly confronted.
4. We had missed the public invitation to
make written submissions and accept the Committee's invitation
with gratitude. We had not been approached by the National Audit
Office when preparing its report "Protecting the Public from
Waste".
5. We offer our views as experienced practitioners
who are dealing with the problems of radically changing waste
management practice through our roles as waste management as well
as waste planning officers, but the thrust of our evidence comes
from the planning role. Committee members will be only too aware
how difficult and controversial most forms of waste management
development can be, and the evidence we can offer is born from
dealing with these issues at development plan and planning application
stages, including at inquiries and Court hearings. Planning Officers
are deeply involved in the difficult process of helping to change
waste management practice in this country, and we hope our experiences
can help better inform thinking needed to achieve it.
PLANNING FOR
WASTE
6. Statutory responsibility for preparing
Waste Local Plans came into effect for the first time in 1991,
and County Councils and Unitary Authorities (then just Metropolitan
Authorities) outside London assumed these new duties. In 1990
the Environmental Protection Act had created a requirement for
Waste Regulation Authorities, separate from Waste Disposal Authorities.
Thus three different waste authority functions, the first two
including regulatory functions, were established—planning,
regulation and disposal—by 1991. Waste Planning Authorities
plan for and regulate the use of land, waste regulation authorities
had a different brief arising from "Control of Pollution"
legislation (and Public Health before it). The basic control mechanisms
for any waste management operation require a planning consent
from the Waste Planning Authority, and (normally) a site licence
from the Waste Regulation Authority. In 1996 these functions were
divorced with the establishment of the Environment Agency under
the 1995 Act, and planners now seek to maintain close working
relationships with Agency officers to help secure the most efficient
delivery of our mutual responsibilities. Committee members will
realise that there is much overlap of interest from planning into
environmental matters, and vice-versa, and close working at officer
level is particular essential to address and resolve issues raised
at the key planning stage. Without planning consent there would
be no need to seek a second consent of site licence, but issues
relevant to licensing are frequently raised at the planning stage.
7. Planning decisions always need to be
made on their merits and taking account of material considerations,
but are much more likely to succeed when they are proposed in
accordance with an existing adopted development plan—the
principal vehicle being the Waste Local Plan. Good progress has
been made in recent years in completing coverage of Waste Local
Plans but it must be said that these have been seriously delayed
by controversy and not assisted by a variety of factors which
we have been drawing to the attention of Government Departments
(DoE/DETR/DTLR and DEFRA) since the mid 1990's. Paramount amongst
these constraints has been:
— the absence of, and subsequently
the ambivalence of, Government Waste Strategy:
— the poor quality of data available
to assist planning purposes;
— failure to address public concerns
with information and encouragement;
— failure to recognise that it takes
time and effort to change attitudes in a throw-away society, unaware
of the true costs of its actions and little concerned with outcomes
unless their own interests are directly affected;
— failure to encourage and invest in
developing alternative technologies.
8. We set out these points forthrightly
as we are seriously concerned, and long have been, that the waste
problem facing this country is a formidable one and that resources
need to be effectively placed into planning for change. The EU
Landfill Directive was many years in drafting but it was always
clear that it would have profound implications for UK waste management
practices.
Yet even now National Waste Strategy is focusing
on the first part of strategy proper and seeking to establish
and achieve stepchange in minimisation and recycling/reuse—without
providing clarity on how landfill diversion is to be achieved.
It appears to planning officers that these policy steers are too
difficult to take head on, or to commit to a line on. Finding
the right balance between setting a direction and remaining flexible
enough to adapt to change in the future is the challenge.
9. How do we plan for waste? Until 1995
Waste Regulation Authorities had a duty to prepare waste management
plans or strategies detailing how "municipal" (predominantly
household) waste should be managed in their area. Few were ever
produced. Provision for this was discontinued at that point, and
only reintroduced by a requirement later placed on Waste Disposal
Authorities in 2000 to prepare Municipal Waste Management Strategy
(MWMS). These are non-statutory, but have provided a much more
effective vehicle for progressing thinking and future action on
waste management change. This is because they focus on the "what"
and "how" questions of waste management, and therefore
can greatly assist the more difficult task of identifying "where"
through the statutory Waste Local Plan (WLP). They therefore provide
a means by which the public can be involved in the process of
accepting greater responsibility for, and exercising greater influence
over, their own problem. But it is vital that communities are
effectively engaged, and issues properly confronted. Not all of
this is happening in practice yet, and many MWMS are focussing
on short rather than long-term needs. Unlike the Waste Local Plan,
they also only deal with municipal (household) wastes.
10. The Environment Agency's two key roles
in waste management are waste regulation and provision of data
for waste planning. There have been difficulties in getting good
quality and consistent data from the Environment Agency, and we
are critical of the Government for not resourcing their activities
better. RTAB's have struggled to establish their own data bases
in advance of the snapshot summaries provided by the Agency's
Regional Strategic Waste Management Assessments in 2000 and await
further information, without which trend analysis is impossible.
It is vital that we plan for the management of all wastes, not
just the predominantly household wastes which make up, at best,
one quarter of the problem we have to manage. Whilst household
wastes may be seen as the principal target to be addressed, there
are big issues to be tackled in other forms of waste—where
will hazardous wastes be going in two years' time, what is happening
to construction and demolition waste, where will industrial and
commercial wastes be sent? All wastes need to go through facilities
with valid permissions, and licences should be applicable to all
of these. Agency and Planning Officers would welcome moves to
draw these processes more closely together, but both also see
a crucial need for better data on which to plan ahead for the
new facilities.
11. To draw threads together, we have a
complex process to tackle, but making the scale of changes that
needs to be made requires some serious adjustment in public and
political commitment levels nationally, and very clear recognition
of the need for proper funding of a grossly under-resourced and
unrealistically cheap public service. There is an imperative need
for action, not words, to raise the level of public comprehension
of the issues and turn minds round.
This means significant public information campaigns,
nationally as well as locally co-ordinated. But we need this to
be complemented and underpinned by long-term planning processes
supported by proper data, appropriate resourcing and public engagement
locally. Despite the delays, more support and effort needs to
be put into effective planning for change.
12. We would add a brief comment on levels
for planning. National Waste Strategy should set clear guidance,
and local responsibility—for MWMS and WLP—rests at
the appropriate level of County/Unitary Authorities. There is
undoubtedly benefit in planning for change at a Regional level,
but we do not yet have Assemblies that are directly-elected or
could impose in any way on those with the statutory responsibilities.
Nor is it likely to be appropriate they should act this way, other
than by exception, if they were elected and carried greater powers.
It is nevertheless very likely that the more appropriate level
in many parts of the country would be sub-regional, particularly
in predominantly rural areas with major centres well separated
within a region. This level of joint working should be encouraged
and built on within any regional planning processes.
FURTHER OBSERVATIONS
13. We are surprised that NAO did not talk
direct to planners, particularly since—through development
control—we operate a complementary regulatory regime to
that provided by Agency staff, and work closely with them at local,
regional and national levels. Determination of land use through
grant of planning permission does not see an end to planning activity
and many of these facilities require close monitoring through
long operational lives to ensure that planning conditions to control
operations and eventual restoration and aftercare are complied
with, or necessary changes can be anticipated and dealt with.
We take into account a very wide range of local community, access
and environmental issues which need to be properly safeguarded
and these can overlap with the primarily pollution control interest
of Agency officers who often now seek to operate within a broader
remit of health and public safety.
14. We await with interest the outcome of
developments under BRITE. It has been hard to maintain proper
contact nationally, and even regionally, in recent months as the
Agency has been reorganising itself. We hope that it will result
in improved local delivery since the consistency of approach anticipated
by the 1995 Act has so far proved difficult to identify. In its
place officers, often with no great seniority, have all too often
taken a precautionary approach when change requires greater willingness
to experiment. We find this disappointing given that licences
can be reviewed at any time, a situation that does not apply to
the planning consents granted by democratically accountable local
authorities.
15. We remain disappointed that—more
than six years on—there is not greater consistency of approach
and perhaps especially regularisation of old licence conditions
through a review. This would provide an effective way of gathering
better quality and more complete data to support planning processes,
as well as improving environmental management controls.
Coupled with a review of exemptions, this would
be further enhanced. With very few exceptions, identified in the
GPDO 1995, all waste management/disposal activities require planning
consent, but many activities including disposal of construction
and demolition wastes are treated as exempt from licensing control—despite
the fact that these contain resources that could be recovered
rather than delivered, often illegally, to locations where tax
has thereby been avoided.
16. A key improvement we hope for is in
response times. There is a tendency for the Agency to respond
following consultation with all its specialist interests such
as water management, fisheries, recreation and ecology. Greater
focus on the issues relevant to waste management decisions would
be welcomed, and Local Authorities have access to their own specialist
advisors as well as consulting other bodies with the relevant
environmental expertise. Speed of response is an important issue,
giving cause to the criticism of lack of accountability when delivery
is slow.
17. In case these views should be misinterpreted,
we would emphasise that officers up and down the country invest
a lot of time and effort working closely with Agency colleagues
to try to deliver the best possible service. Both require, like
the waste management industry itself, greater investment to help
them deliver the stepchange that is required in approach. Government
must invest properly in planning and regulatory services to help
the process as, fundamentally, it must also face up to the need
for greatly increased expenditure in waste management itself.
The DEFRA Challenge Fund for recycling and composting is a useful
but inadequate contribution to helping make that part of change
happen, and needs to continue in future years. But what happened
to the wider investment in waste management, announced by the
Chancellor in July as a matter he was deferring decisions on until
the Cabinet Office had reported? Council budgets up and down the
country are being set now, but do we know what the comprehensive
spending review picture is for waste over the next three years?
18. There has long been a view at local
authority level that the ambitious and rather arbitrary recycling
targets for 2003-04 and 2005-06 would never be met in the unrealistically-set
timescale. Government itself clearly recognised that the Strategy
was in difficulty when Margaret Beckett MP set up the Waste Summit
in 2001, and subsequently the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit has
had a hard look at the problem. I think all parties now recognise
the difficulties we face. But this is looking through one end
of the telescope. Planners see it as important to make serious
inroads into recovery of materials from recycling and composting
activities, and to encourage reuse and minimisation. These activities
need facilities and many will require new consents at short notice,
which is not the safest way to guarantee a successful outcome.
More importantly however there will be significant demands for
large numbers of new transfer and recovery/processing facilities
to help the move towards the landfill diversion targets which
are approaching quickly now. A key concern for planners is to
get a clear brief on what future waste management processes are
likely to be available and acceptable so that plan processes can
be undertaken and the process of applying for consents can get
underway on a more secure basis.
Clarity of mind on options is vital to this,
since the development process is an extended one. From conception
of need to operation of facility is unlikely to be achieved in
less than seven to 10 years for any substantial new waste management
facility, which means that we need to be planning for change now
if medium and long-term targets are ever to be met.
19. A final word on the Strategy Unit's
"Waste Not, Want Not" report. POS were appreciative
of opportunities to make submissions and believe the analysis
of this problem is particularly comprehensive and clearly well-understood.
We are disappointed that recommendations are still placing greatest
(indeed greater) emphasis on reduction and recycling but not saying
more on landfill diversion which needs much greater attention.
We would particularly draw attention to the size of the waste
problem by 2020 identified on Figure 5 (page 31) of the Strategy
Unit report and query how this tallies with the optimistic scenarios
which see targets being met. There are very many good points made
in the report but these now need to be picked up and driven through
if we are to move forward.
20. We have prepared this memorandum at
very short notice, and would be more than pleased to answer the
Committee's questions on any relevant matters to the Inquiry,
to the best of our ability.
January 2003
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