Planning shake-up is not fit for purpose, warn MPs (From The Northern Echo)

Planning shake-up is not fit for purpose, warn MPs

12:26pm Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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HOPES of expanding northern ports such as Teesport will be hit by a planning shake-up not fit for purpose, a committee of MPs warns today.

The Government is told to urgently rethink its controversial National Policy Statement for Ports (NPS), in a stinging report by the Commons transport select committee.

The NPS is attacked as a muddle, because it attempts to set future policy for port expansion without considering where new road and rail links will be needed.

The shake-up also wrongly failed to explicitly back growth in the North, rather than at already-booming ports in the South – despite a wider Government aim to narrow the North-South divide.

And the Department for Transport is accused of getting its demand forecasts wrong, jeopardising any further port expansions for the next 20 years.

Louise Ellman, the committee’s Labour chairman, said: “The National Policy Statement for Ports is not fit for purpose until major changes are made.”

The conclusions will delight One NorthEast and The Northern Way group, both of which gave evidence that the policy must be more interventionist, rather than leaving decisions to the free market.

Their fears centred on the need for a clear commitment to improve rail links, to allow larger containers to be carried on standard wagons to the Tees, Humber and Mersey ports.

The Northern Way called for the NPS to explicitly direct that ports should be allowed to expand where they would contribute to efforts to shift wealth from South to North.

There has also been growing anger over the absurdity of half of deep sea containers arriving at Felixstowe and Southampton heading for destinations north of Birmingham – clogging up major roads. Meanwhile, ministers have already admitted they will need to rethink forecasts for port traffic through to 2030 because of the impact of the recession.

The little-known NPS is crucial because it will determine all future port expansion decisions, which will be taken by the new Infrastructure Planning Commission, rather than at public inquiries.

Mrs Ellman added: “The ports policy should be clearly co-ordinated with that for national road and rail networks.

“Yet the Government seems to be rushing the ports NPS through with unnecessary haste. The Government says the free-market should decide where ports are located.

“We believe that the ports NPS should be linked much more strongly to regional development plans.”

The hard-hitting conclusions pose a dilemma for ministers, who have pledged to sign off the NPS by the end of this month, with the General Election looming.

They are warned that pressing ahead with a fatallyflawed policy could result in judicial reviews of future decisions – resulting in uncertainty, additional cost and delay.