By Victoria Bryan
LONDON (Reuters) - The Conservative party's plans to limit the powers of Britain's planning body for major projects may derail construction of new nuclear plants and hold up key infrastructure investment, industry executives said.
The Conservatives had set out plans to scrap the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), an unelected body set up by the ruling Labour party to approve large infrastructure projects.
They have since moderated the plans, saying they will change its name and make it more democratically accountable, with a government minister -- a secretary of state -- giving the final approval on major projects.
"What we don't want is an application being put forward and it sitting on the Secretary of State's desk for some months while his civil servants ponder the recommendations of whatever the IPC morphs into," Sarwjit Sambhi, MD of Power Generation at Centrica, told Reuters in an interview.
Centrica moved into nuclear last year when it bought a 20 percent stake in British Energy, owned by EDF of France. British Energy plans to build four European pressurised reactors in Britain.
"From an investor's perspective, when we look down the list of potential things that could derail or accelerate nuclear development, one is planning reform," Sambhi said.
National Grid, which is currently planning massive investment in transmission to connect up new sources of energy generation such as wind, tidal and nuclear to the grid, said the creation of the IPC had been a big step forward.
"Planning consent is key to meeting these challenges," Mike Calviou, director of asset management for UK Transmission at National Grid, said at a utilities conference in London.
"We need to get a lot of new generation connected to the grid," he said. "Given where we are we have a good shot but there's not much room for slippage."
Energy regulator Ofgem said last month Britain urgently needs to reform its power sector to ensure secure and sustainable energy supplies, warning that the closure of ageing power stations demanded swift energy market reforms to meet environmental targets and keep the lights on.
John Saunders, Chief Executive of the IPC, said the body, which is barely 100 days old, was just trying to get on with its job despite the political uncertainty.
"We will not comment on politics," he said, although he added that it was difficult to hire people at present. Britain has to hold an election by June at the latest, with the Conservatives now leading in opinion polls.
Whatever the outcome, Centrica's Sambhi said any decisions would have to be put in place quickly.
"If we want a new nuclear reactor up and running by 2018, we're going to have to make the investment decision on that new reactor sometime next year. We don't have years to ponder this, only months."
(Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Anthony Barker)
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