ECO-PIONEER Ossie Goring is calling on Gloucestershire councils to do more to encourage renewable energy generation.

Mr Goring, owner of hydro-electric firm Water Power Engineering, wants authorities to draw up a specific policy to guide businesses and householders when making planning applications for green technologies.

He also wants Stroud District Council to prove its commitment to green power production by pressing ahead with plans to reinstate a water turbine at Ebley Mill.

"I’m not asking them to spend money, I am just asking them to have a planning policy so people who know how to do these things know how to go about making an application," said Mr Goring, whose firm at Coaley Mill designs builds and installs water turbines.

The Gloucestershire area has an optional government target under the south west regional spatial strategy to provide 40 to 50MW of renewable power by 2010.

Mr Goring said all local authorities should draw up a planning policy with a renewable energy target and a proportional breakdown of which technologies would be used.

He said the policy should also include a map of preferred locations for technologies.

Mr Goring pointed out there is about 500 mill sites in Gloucestershire, including more than 100 in the Stroud valleys, which could be used to generate power.

An SDC spokesman said the authority had its own target to produce 22MW of renewable energy in the district by 2019 and was working with a panel of local businesses and experts to explore a more challenging energy strategy.

He said there was a map of potential small hydro sites, which would feed into the council's emerging core strategy on the future of the district. The spokesman said plans for a hydropower scheme at Ebley Mill were yet to be finalised due to issues raised by landowners and the Environment Agency.

"We are obviously very keen to showcase water power at Ebley Mill, but the scheme is likely to cost around £400,000," he said.

"The issues would have to be addressed, and with this huge price tag, we have to ensure that the benefits, financial and environmental, outweigh the costs."

Simon Excell, regeneration and sustainable development manager at Gloucestershire County Council, said: "Our current priority is to reduce carbon emissions as it makes sense to reduce our energy use as much as possible before looking at increasing investment into renewable technologies. We do not have our own renewable energy target."

He added that it was for the district councils to allocate land for renewable energy generation.