The Government has released its draft Ports National Policy Statement on the 9th November 2009.

It is a National Policy Statement (NPS) and provides the framework for future decisions on proposals for new port development to be taken by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) established under the 2008 Act to deal with nationally significant infrastructure proposals (NSIPs). It applies, wherever relevant, to associated development, such as road and rail links, for which consent is sought alongside that for the principal development.

The NPS sets out the Government’s conclusions on the need for new port infrastructure, considering the current place of ports in the national economy, the available evidence on future demand, and the options for meeting future needs. It explains to planning decision-makers the approach they should take to proposals, including the main issues which, in the Government’s view, will need to be addressed to ensure that future development is fully sustainable, and the weight to be given to the need for new port infrastructure and to the positive and negative impacts it may bring.

For more information on the Ports NPS you can access summaries prepared by Planning Aid which can be found here.

Transport Select Committee

Click here to access the RTPI's submission to the Transport Select Committee reviewing the Ports NPS.

Ports NPS Consultation

The RTPI submitted its response to the Ports NPS consultation on the 15th February 2010.

The scale and impacts of our ports mean that they have a central role to play in all levels of spatial plan-making. We have sought to emphasise this in our response to the consultation. In particular, the following points are worth highlighting:

• The draft Ports NPS needs to be considered together with all other transport infrastructure NPSs.
• NPSs generally should be spatially planned and integrated with other national policies, not majority market-led. In particular, the Ports NPS needs to be linked with manufacturing localities and major growth areas where goods are distributed.
• The Ports NPS should also demonstrate direct links to the RSS and LDF context and the Planning Policy Wales and the Wales Spatial Plan and related local development plans
• The Ports NPS should focus on enhancing the sustainable transport of goods throughout England and Wales (and to contribute to the whole of the UK) and ports have a major part to play in this respect.
• The 5 core policy pages of the draft NPS therefore require full review.

The draft Ports NPS establishes the need for new port infrastructure but this is premised on arguments of additional capacity to allow for competition, choice and resilience. As a consequence there is little to guide decision makers on the location, scale or phasing of port facility provision. The draft NPS neither sets out a level of ‘need’ nor does it establish an ‘urgency’ of delivery. Rather it indicates an industry impacted ‘severely’ by the recession, where consented development may be delayed, but which needs to be able to respond to changing market demands and build in additional capacity to ensure resilience, however the amount is not quantified. This, together with the recent nature of the consents would suggest that ‘urgency’ is not currently an issue (unlike the draft energy NPSs).

This unspecified approach to need fails to enable the coordinated provision of related infrastructure such as road and rail transport, energy generation and transmission. Only through the coordinated provision of related infrastructure can the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) overarching policy, of encouraging sustainable port development be achieved. In particular coordinated infrastructure provision is a necessity if the aims of sustainable transport, trans-modal shift, capacity for the development of renewable energy and economic and social cohesion are to be met. Certain ports provide for more efficient on-journeys than others and the market cannot be relied upon to identify these. 

In summary the draft NPS is inadequate in that it fails to identify the quantity, location and timing of the provision of additional port capacity.

For more information on the Government's plans click here.

Return to our National Policy Statement page.

Author:

Rebecca Coates

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

09-Nov-09

This article has been read 2270 times.