Scottish Government

The Scottish Government has consulted on proposals to transfer the determination of all onshore hydro scheme applications of 50 MW or less to Planning Authorities. The move brings Scotland in line with England and Wales and seeks to encourage developers to size their scheme appropriately. It also allows planning authorities to recover more of their cost from application fees than they are currently able to.

The following documents are available:

• Proposal To Raise the Section 36 Consent Threshold for Onshore Hydro Schemes: A Consultation Paper
• Responses to the consultation received by the Scottish Government (also available in pdf format)
• The Scottish Government's Final Equality Impact Assessment of the proposals (also available in pdf format)
• The Scottish Government's response, setting out how it will implement its proposals (also available in pdf format)