Council Considers How to Engage with SPEN Strategic Reinforcement Project

At the Economy, Environment and Infrastructure Committee (EEI) on 10 November 2015, Councillors will be asked to consider how the Council should deal with responding to the SPEN Strategic Reinforcement Project.
This project involves the proposals by Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) for the development and provision of new overhead power lines from Ayrshire, through Dumfries and Galloway and beyond, into Cumbria, and from Kendoon, through Glenlee to Tongland. The project would also allow for the removal of approximately 130km of existing tower lines from the region, allowing for the replacement of some of the existing aging infrastructure, which is over 70 years old in places, and will allow for increased capacity. The details of the project are still to be worked up by SPEN over the next 3 years, following an initial phase of public consultation earlier this summer.
In terms of procedure, the application will be submitted by SPEN directly to the Scottish Government and NOT the Council. The Council will only be a statutory consultee. This means that it is not within the gift of Dumfries and Galloway Council to make any formal decisions on the outcome of the application, which will not be submitted until 2019 at the earliest, but it will be able to express an opinion and provide influence to the process of the decision the Scottish Government will make.
However, once the application by SPEN has been submitted, if the Council were to submit a formal objection to the proposal, this would automatically trigger a public inquiry into the planned scheme. Therefore, the Council will carry out a full and robust assessment of the SPEN proposals once they are submitted and this will be presented to Full Council, who will then decide whether it wishes to object to the proposal or not.
It should be noted that this process comes under the terms of the Electricity Act 1989 and under this Act, any representations for or against the planned proposal from members of the public must be made directly to the Scottish Government and NOT the Council. Furthermore, the Planning Applications Committee does not allow public speaking for applications for which it is not the determining body. However, due to the likely level of public interest and the Council’s wish for transparency, it is proposed that a Council response would be made to further rounds of consultation which SPEN will carry out as they develop their proposals with a view to submitting them in 2019.
Chair of the EEI, Councillor Colin Smyth commented on the process, he said: “It will ultimately be the Scottish Government’s decision as to whether this project goes ahead and the Council are only statutory consultees for the final stage around 2019. However, the report before Councillors on 10 November proposes that the Council, through the Planning Applications Committee, takes part in the consultation process at stage 2 and stage 3 on the proposed route and design and feeds in our view prior to SPEN making a submission to Scottish Government. The advantage of this is that SPEN will know well in advance any issues Councillors have before they submit their final application to the Scottish Government”.
“Whilst it will be up to Councillors on the Committee to decide whether they wish to pursue that process, this is an unprecedented project on a scale we have never seen before in our region and I think it is only right that the Council should at the very least make everyone aware of our views as early as possible. The report however also makes clear to Councillors that because this is a planning process they should not be making public statements that give the impression they have already made up their mind because this would be in breach of the Standards Commission’s Code of Conduct.”