Legislation – The Electricity Works (Miscellaneous Temporary Modifications) (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020

These Regulations make temporary modifications to the Electricity (Applications for Consent) Regulations 1990, Electricity Generating Stations (Applications for variation of Consent) (Scotland) Regulations 2013 and Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017. These modifications alter requirements to make information or documentation available for inspection in a public place, to enable objections to applications for consent under the Electricity Act 1989 to be made by means of electronic communication, and relaxes requirements for hard copy Environmental Impact Assessments to be provided to the Scottish Ministers. The changes made by these Regulations are necessary as a result of coronavirus.

Regulation 2 amends the Electricity (Applications for Consent) Regulations 1990 to remove the requirement for the developer to make a map available for inspection during the “emergency period”. The emergency period is defined by reference to section 12 of the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act.

Regulation 3 amends the Electricity Generating Stations (Applications for Variation of Consent) (Scotland) Regulations 2013 to remove the requirement to make documents available for public inspection during the emergency period for meetings of the local review body to be held in public during the emergency period.

Regulation 4 amends the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 so that during the emergency period developers and planning authorities are not required to ensure that copies of EIA reports and decision notices are available for public inspection at a physical location. Regulation 4 also provides that developers must only provide hard copies of an EIA report to Scottish Ministers following the emergency period.