Has spatial planning policy gone a step too far? 

By Jamie Gordon – Executive Director 

We’ve had AI growth zones, central activity zones, joint core spatial strategy, heat network zones and local area energy plans – to name just a few. And now we also have NESO’s entries into the land designation game – the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan and its lesser sibling – the Regional Energy Strategic Plans. 

We’ve looked at what these are and what they mean for the industry.

Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP) 

Last year NESO published its approved methodology for Britain’s SSEP. The intention is to provide the first high-level blueprint for Great Britain’s energy production from 2030 to 2050, and show where and how much electricity and hydrogen generation and storage may be required as energy demand grows. 

The methodology aims to balance the cost and technology requirements with environmental impacts, community views and competing uses of land and coast, while maintaining a secure, reliable and affordable system. Markets will continue to deliver generation and flexibility, but the SSEP should help investors understand how individual projects fit within the national strategy. 

The SSEP will also guide NESO’s Centralised Strategic Network Plan, which will consider gas and electricity transmission needs to 2050. A Strategic Environmental Assessment is being prepared alongside it, with the Environmental Report expected to be consulted on with the draft SSEP in early 2027.

Together, these processes are designed to create a more coordinated, whole-energy-system approach with the aim of developing, as the original commissioning letter from DESNZ states, ‘a plan that works for all of Great Britain, contributing towards a more sustainable and secure energy system, as well as boosting economic opportunity and domestic performance’. 

In practice, the first stage is to define the optimal mix and locations of generation and storage technologies required to deliver net zero by 2050, based on four to six options to be presented to Government, and then a single pathway is selected for public consultation prior to publication at the end of this year.

Regional Energy Strategic Planning (RESP) 

NESO is also responsible for producing RESPs across Scotland, Wales and nine English regions. These plans are intended to connect national ambition with regional and local priorities, identify the infrastructure needed for decarbonisation and economic growth, and integrate electricity, gas and hydrogen networks that have historically been planned separately. 

National inputs, including the SSEP, will help keep regional pathways aligned with Great Britain-wide ambitions. In return, RESPs will provide more granular, bottom-up evidence on local demand generation and investment needs. They will primarily inform distribution network investment, while dependencies on transmission infrastructure will need to be reflected through the Centralised Strategic Network Plan. 

Local Area Energy Plans and Scotland’s Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies will form part of the RESP evidence base where they exist. NESO says it will work with local authorities to understand different methodologies and ensure places without a local plan are not disadvantaged. Full RESPs are currently planned for delivery by the end of 2028, subject to the Energy Secretary’s decision on the SSEP pathway. 

Conclusion 

Many advisors in the sector have concerns that there are too many confusing layers of energy planning in progress to generate an outcome which will speed up the process. 

Developers are also concerned that while the SSEP will not designate individual projects, there are worries that projects outside preferred locations may become harder to finance, consent or connect, even if they remain technically viable.

Another risk is that too many zone types will be developed in isolation without the potential overlapping benefits being considered, such as an AI growth zone, heat network zone and a RESP overlapping so that data centre development provides heat offtakes for the network. We can only hope that common sense prevails.

Certainly, there is no doubt that SSEPs and RESPs will have some influence over the placement of future developments, and so it is crucial that the sector understands and feeds into the process. If you would like some advice on how this can be done, do contact us here at Cavendish.