Indeed – it becomes an issue of value-judgments which is hard to mediate over.

“Dominant assurance contracts are a nice solution to holdout problems: basically, you get everyone along your proposed route to sign a contract saying that they’re willing to sell at price X if the route goes ahead, and they’re given a bonus of Y for signing on before date Z regardless of whether the project goes ahead”

Agreed that this is a good idea. However, if some section HAS to be part of a given project then we still have the issue of hold up

“National Interest does sound dodgy”

Very much.

“I’m not sure you can ever define the “national interest” in any serious way other than what the government says it is, and that is not a good basis for forcing through a project”

Indeed.

It also can lead to embarrasingly long queues at ministers’ doors as they parade their national interest. Wading through a bog of special pleading always leaves a nasty mess on your shoes.

I don’t like ANY provision that makes the burden of regulation less onerous for government than for private developers as that attenuates incentives to get regulations right. National Interest does sound dodgy.

I accept there is a legitimate interest if a public asset is affected to some extent, but you end up with endless relitigation of issues that the courts have no expertise in and which other processes cover. In the windfarms case they are arguing over the status of the power system and the demand growth for electricity, which are subject to other planning processes and oversight. To me it shouldn’t be up for debate. If someone wants to take a commercial risk and build it, that should be reason enough. What you should be arguing is the environmental effects.