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Closed petition PE2095: Improve the public consultation processes for energy infrastructure projects
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to:
review and seek to update section 3.2 of the Energy Consents Unit: Good Practice Guidance for Applications under Section 36 and 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 to address the concerns of communities about the lack of meaningful, responsible, and robust voluntary and pre-application consultation by transmission operators on energy infrastructure projects
explore all available levers to strengthen community liaison and public participation for the lifecycle of energy infrastructure projects.
Background information
Communities across North East Scotland have serious concerns about the quality and transparency of the public consultation accompanying SSEN Transmission’s East Coast 400kV Phase 2 project.
SSEN’s engagement with communities has been rushed, and insufficient effort has been made to understand and communicate the full impact of the proposals to impacted communities. There have been inconsistencies between information presented in SSEN’s published material and their contact with community representatives. Many affected residents were unaware of the plans and it has fallen to local campaigners to raise awareness.
These concerns have had a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of residents, who are worried about their health, businesses, property value, cultural heritage, and the loss of prime agricultural land.
The Scottish Government must use all available levers to improve the public consultation processes for energy infrastructure projects and ensure they are carried out with the consent of the affected communities.
This petition was considered by the Scottish Parliament
3,639 signatures