Environmental Justice Challenges in United Kingdom Infrastructure Planning: Lessons from a Welsh Incinerator Project

In the United Kingdom, the development of nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPS) such as power stations, waste management facilities, and airports, has become subject to recent changes in legislation and planning practice that have significant environmental justice implications for locally affected site communities. This discussion article examines UK infrastructure planning policy through a procedural environmental justice lens—specifically examining the changing role of community consultation and decisional influence in project plans, and industry-stakeholder relations between developers and citizens from economically and socially marginalized backgrounds. The procedural justice dimensions of UK NSIPS are examined with reference to the case of a proposed waste incinerator project in South Wales under the auspices of the (now defunct) Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). The conclusions section outlines specific policy recommendations for the UK IPC's replacement—the Planning Inspectorate's Infrastructure Planning Unit.