Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 81A: 81A: Clause 52, page 30, line 9, after ““surveying”” insert ““, investigating”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 81B to 81D. We are moving now to Chapter 3—““Assistance for applicants and others””—and, in particular, Clause 52, which is concerned with rights of entry. One of the objectives of the Bill, quite rightly, is to avoid promoters having to make multiple applications and I have been encouraged by the Society of Parliamentary Agents to table the amendments because we have identified gaps in the pre-application procedures when compared with those of the Transport and Works Act, with which noble Lords will be very familiar. The purpose of the amendments is to allow the IPC to give rights of entry to any person proposing to apply for development consent orders in relation to land not directly affected by a proposed project but which could be indirectly affected by it, possibly by displaced environmental effects. The amendment is necessary because Clause 52(2) currently limits a right of entry that the IPC can authorise before the application to land likely to be directly required for a project. The amendments also widen the scope of the clause as a whole so that, in addition to entry for surveying, taking levels, searching and boring, entry may be authorised for generally investigating the land and to carry out ecological and archaeological investigations. Apparatus may also need to be left on the land for any of those purposes. It is important that subsection (3) makes clear that the surveys concerned include ecological surveys, in accordance with the TWA orders prescription. In addition, subsections (2)(a) and (b) are too limiting in terms of the scope of the surveys. To assess fully the impact of a proposed project it is often necessary to survey land adjacent or near to the project to check for possible displaced effects, which would not normally be land over which the promoter is intending to seek works or compulsory purchase powers. We are talking about the pre-application stage. It is difficult to work out how an applicant can properly carry out an environmental impact assessment, an EIA, if access to land in the vicinity of the land to be acquired and used for the project is denied. As noble Lords will know, EIAs must consider all the effects of a project, including displaced effects. The scope of the clause should be expanded to cover generally investigating as well as surveying and taking levels. The clause should also cover ecological and archaeological investigations and allow apparatus such as monitoring equipment, which is often necessary for this, to be left on the land. All these activities are often necessary for the purpose of carrying out a thorough EIA. Again, they are commonly used and needed in TWA orders. I beg to move.