As you are all no doubt aware, there has been consultation recently relating to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project applications. It is intended that the development consent to be granted by the IPC will be one document to cover (pretty much) all necessary consents and permissions for the Project. It can also cover 'associated development'.
From what I understand, it is for the applicant to decide what 'associated development' he wants to include in his application - typically this will cover such things as access roads. It is then for the IPC to decide what it will accept as 'associated development'. However, I am less clear on how much scope there is for that to be the subject of debate in front of the IPC. If environmental impact assessment etc has to be carried out before it is actually agreed what the scope of the 'associated development' is, is there not significant scope for challenge on the basis that the assessments have not actually assessed the totality of the project that is given consent - or that development has been assessed which is then taken out of the project description? Would it be safer to deal with such development in separate applications?
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