Stephen Jay

Planners to the rescue: Spatial planning facilitating the development of offshore wind energy

The development of offshore wind energy has started to take place surprisingly quickly, especially in North European waters. This has taken the wind energy industry out of the territory of planning systems that usually govern the siting of wind farms on land, and into the world of departmental, sectoral regulation of marine activities. Although this has favoured the expansion of offshore wind energy in some respects, evidence suggests that the practice and principles of spatial planning can make an important contribution to the proper consideration of proposals for offshore wind arrays. This is especially so when a strategic planning process is put in place for marine areas, in which offshore wind is treated as part of the overall configuration of marine interests, so that adjustments can be made in the interests of wind energy. The current process of marine planning in the Netherlands is described as an illustration of this.

Marine Spatial Planning: A New Frontier?

Marine spatial planning is taking on greater international significance as a response to increased perceived threats to the marine environment and the need for more systematic maritime governance. It also expands the horizons of spatial planning and leads to calls for interdisciplinary research to support its development. This special issue brings together papers focusing on the need for a more active engagement of natural and social science perspectives in the formation of spatial strategies concerned with the future well-being of the seas and oceans.

The status and extent of strategic environmental assessment practice in South Africa, 1996-2003

ABSTRACT South Africa is regarded as a leading developing country in terms of SEA practice, but no empirical research has been conducted to determine the overall status and extent of practice. This lack of empirical research amongst extensive SEA practice can be considered a major lost opportunity for South Africa, and also for developing countries in general. This paper presents the results of a survey on SEA practice for the period 1996 to 2003. A total of 50 SEAs were conducted and confirm that SEA practice is well established and on the increase. Moreover the extent of practice compares well with that of most international SEA systems, and the variety in terms of tiers, types and scales even exceeds most other practice. The research shows that although SEA followed the traditional pattern of integration with policy, plan or programme (PPP) tiers of decision making; also it was uniquely implemented as a substitute where strategic level decision making processes were weak or absent. The SEAs reflected a variety of sectoral types implemented at national, provincial, sub-regional and local geographic scales. The results also provide insights into the profile of the emerging SEA system in South Africa by highlighting legislative and policy provisions that implicitly facilitated practice, and also those responsible for conducting and implementing SEA. Findings support the notion that South Africa provides a rich variety of SEA practice that could provide solutions to the challenge of tailoring SEA to developing country contexts. The paper concludes by proposing directions for future SEA research and debate.

Marine Space: Manoeuvring Towards a Relational Understanding

Drawing on developments in conceptualizing space within human geography, planning thought has begun to consider the possibilities of relational and socially constructed, as opposed to physically deterministic, understandings of space. This article considers the relevance of this debate to the emerging field of marine planning, as experience of the sea suggests that a relational interpretation of space may be pertinent to planning efforts in the marine environment. This hypothesis is explored by means of an empirical study of the views of representatives of the commercial shipping sector in the Netherlands faced with the prospect of a major expansion of offshore wind energy. Their responses revealed complex spatial dynamics at work, illustrating the production of relational space, that were being poorly served by planning measures. A dominant influence in the understanding of space was the interplay with the complexities of the natural environment, which points in the direction of a closer incorporation of ecological insights in the development of a relational approach to planning for the sea.

Early European Experience in Marine Spatial Planning: Planning the German Exclusive Economic Zone

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning.

The forces shaping local planning policy on high voltage electricity installations

Local planning authorities in England and Wales are turning increasingly to development plan policy as a means of expressing their concerns about the planning implications of high voltage electricity installations. This body of policy provides a well-defined focus for the study of local environmental policy making. This article presents an analysis of policy formation that gives attention to external forces and local conditions, and the ways in which these impinge on policy makers preparing development plans. Local policy activity is found to be connected closely to heightened sensitization to high voltage installations in areas that are being attributed greater environmental worth. Broader questions are also raised about the changing nature of the relationship between planning authorities and privatized utilities.

Pylons in the back yard: local planning and perceived risks to health

Health fears arising from the presence of high-voltage power lines in residential areas have received recent attention in spatial planning. A study of stances taken by planning authorities in England and Wales shows their willingness to give expression to the concerns of local communities through precautionary measures, and the difficulties encountered in the face of official statements and industry opposition. These attempts to embody local feeling in patterns of development are illustrative of the increasing prevalence of a sense of risk in contemporary society. The spatial patterns of risk are also revealed, which owe much to the presence and distribution of industrial infrastructure in the landscape and to the associated contested use of land.

The place of strategic environmental assessment in the privatised electricity industry

The private sector has given relatively little attention to the emergence of strategic environmental assessment (SEA); even recently privatised utilities, where SEA might be deemed particularly appropriate, and whose activities are likely to fall within the scope of the European Union SEA Directive, have shown less interest than might be expected. However, the global trend towards the privatisation of state-owned enterprises makes the adaptation of SEA towards these industries all the more pressing. This paper addresses the place that SEA might take within the electricity sector, taking the privatised UK electricity industry as an example. Particular challenges are posed by the radical restructuring of the industry, designed to introduce competitive behaviour, making the development of comprehensive SEA processes problematic, and requiring SEA to be placed in the context of corporate environmental policy and objectives.

The emergence of local planning authority policy on high voltage electricity issues

The high-voltage distribution and transmission of electricity are associated with a range of environmental effects that are increasingly contentious and are leading to difficult land-use planning issues. In the UK, local planning authorities have been taking an anticipatory approach to such efforts by the formation of policy in statutory land-use plans; this seeks to set constraints on the location and form of high-voltage installations and nearby development. This emerging body of policy reveals a number of consistently occurring themes that focus explicitly on the protection of local environmental conditions. This is indicative of broader trends apparent throughout plan-making in the last decade, in which environmental emphases have become more central, but the policy area also indicates that local authorities are responding to structural changes in the electricity industry and to changing patterns of energy generation. Copyright

Customers as decision-makers: strategic environmental assessment in the private sector

Despite its diversification and global spread, strategic environmental assessment (SEA) remains limited mainly to activities characterised by well-defined planning processes, typically within the public sector. This article explores the possible application of SEA within certain private-sector contexts where higher-level strategy-making itself is inherently weaker and development is often piecemeal and reactive. The possible adaptation of SEA to the preparation of a strategic document by a particular industrial concern in the UK is examined: this draws attention to the multi-actor nature of development processes within the industry. This leads to the suggestion that SEA in this setting should be thought of as a form of environmental advocacy oriented towards industrial customers, who are understood as sharing a decision-making role in infrastructure development.