New Planning Rules for Wind Power - Sauce for the Goose?

Mike Birkin

10 June 2013

New Planning Rules for Wind Power - Sauce for the Goose?

It looked like another good news day in Daily Express land. "End of Hated Wind Farms!" the paper screamed with delight following Government proposals on planning for onshore wind.  "Local views will always take precedence over concerns about the global environment" it crowed. The story quoted a senior Tory source as saying "This is effectively the end of on-shore wind farming in Britain".

But as is so often the case, once you look for the reality behind the headline (how shall I put this politely?) the truth is a little more nuanced.

Let's deal with the "hated" bit first. It is evident that many on the conservative right do indeed hate wind farms. But to portray this attitude as representative of the country as a whole is very misleading. Opinion polls repeatedly show a high level of support for renewable energy.

A recent poll, cited by RegenSW, asked how people felt about a cluster of two to four wind turbines specifically in their area. Those 11% very opposed and 11% quite opposed were easily outnumbered by a striking 24% very supportive and 41% quite supportive.

In my experience communities across England are far from universally hostile in their views on wind power. I've been supporting the Wiltshire Clean Energy Alliance, to counter a proposed buffer zone policy that would effectively have ruled out large scale wind turbines anywhere in the county. Many people reacted strongly against this effective ban, and the Alliance came into being to give them a voice.

So if the public's view of wind farms isn't quite as it seems in Daily Express land, what about the proposed changes in planning? There are some things here that as grassroots environmentalists we can welcome. For proposals deemed 'more significant', developers will have to consult local communities before they make a planning application. This already happens for large scale energy projects and should be regarded as good practice by developers of renewable energy at any scale.

The Government also intends to provide more guidance and reliable evidence, and to support local communities, developers and council planners to understand the process and the issues better. Again all to the good, considering how often wind power proposals get bogged down in some very dodgy 'evidence'.

There will be higher expectations of the scale of community benefits packages, and the government says it wants to help local ownership of projects through a Community Energy Strategy. All good stuff, and curiously no mention that local views will always take precedence.

The new proposals become more contentious when the government starts saying that concerns over local impacts should be given greater weight than global or national needs. There is nothing explicit in the proposals on this, but the accompanying DECC press release says that "current planning decisions on onshore wind are not always reflecting a locally-led planning system".

You can read an awful lot into that and some Tory MPs clearly already have. But is the government clear what it is saying here?

Is onshore wind really being singled out for special treatment to satisfy the posturing of a noisy group of rural Tory MPs? Or will the same principle also be applied to any other energy or infrastructure project that local people might have some legitimate concerns about? What about fracking, incinerators or HS2? Not for the first time, the government may find that sticking an ideologically propelled oar into the planning system creates confusion rather than clarity.

We have yet to see the devil in the detail, but two things at least do remain clear. Firstly the planning system is still one of the major tools at our disposal to respond to climate change. The government acknowledges this, but is not making it any easier. Secondly, the importance of winning hearts and minds at a local level, and for the majority who support renewable energy to become more visible and influential, is growing all the time.

Friends of the Earth is running a training day on supporting renewable energy projects, "Yes in My Back Yard!", with the support of the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Regen SW, in Bristol on Saturday 22nd June.