ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the lessons for regulation on the monitoring of local environmental impacts from development that is required as a condition of planning consent. It draws on data from focus groups with local people who were involved prior to 2015 in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects consenting processes for four major wind farm projects in England. Previous studies on public engagement with planning for major infrastructures such as wind farm developments have demonstrated the epistemic tensions within such regulatory processes. In the English cases examined here, local people’s lived experiences and lay knowledges of the likely future impacts of development were in conflict with the rationales and approach to evidence building that underpinned the environmental monitoring required of developers by the national planning authority As a result, local publics sought to extend regulatory practice beyond the normative bounds of rule-making through activities evocative of citizen science. This indicates that neither future monitoring activities nor the role of the public in post-consent stage is given sufficient attention within regulation.
