The EA and Climate East Midlands, a central government funded organisation with responsibility for coordinating the area's local councils and other bodies in tackling climate change, have commissioned AMEC, a major engineering firm, to write 'Planning for Hydropower: A good practice guide'.
It seems very curious that public funds should be paying a private company for such a document that will, in effect, inform private developers on how to get a smoother ride for their projects through the planning permission process. Even more curious given that the EA, less than two years ago, had already written their own 'Good Practice Guidelines to the Environment Agency Hydropower Handbook' which covers the ecological impacts of schemes and, getting really weird now, the EA are due to publish their own new guidelines, 'Good Practice Guidance for small-scale and micro-scale hydropower' in early 2012! Might a multinational construction firm have been paid from the public purse simply to position themselves perfectly to cash in on the UK's present and ill-informed love of all things micro-hydro? Surely not...
The document is presently in draft and can be read here. Comments should be sent to alex.melling@amec.com or in writing to Alex Melling, AMEC, 155 Aztec West, Park Avenue, Almondsbury, Bristol, BS32 4UB. The deadline for comments is 13th Jan 11.
Thanks to RW
No comments:
Post a Comment