Unlocking the wind jam

Windfarms suffer from a particularly virulent strain of NIMBY. Andrew Smith makes the case for more sense of direction in the planning process.

Wind energy has come of age. The words are from Wind Force, the blueprint for development put out in May by Greenpeace and the European wind power industry. The UK government seems to agree, seeing the growth of wind power as a key element in meeting its greenhouse gas reduction targets.

All UK windfarm developments, however, must pass through our planning system - a hurdle currently causing the industry considerable grief. Direct public input at each stage makes democratic sense, but the planning process can involve long delays, and appeals, with the would-be developer still facing the eventual possibility of refusal.

Regionalisation complicates things too. Scotland’s planning system was always distinct from that of England and Wales, and since devolution the emphases have diverged further. All three countries have a broadly equal share of the UK’s current wind energy capacity, but Scotland has had more installed than the other two together since 2000 - when its National Planning Policy Guideline 6 (NPPG6) on Renewable Energy gave local planning authorities a firm steer, recognising the potential economic benefits of windfarm developments in fragile rural areas, and putting Scotland’s shift to renewables in a land use context. Setting a 40% target for power generation from non-polluting sources by 2020, as mooted by Scottish environment minister Ross Finnie, would be another boost to the industry in Scotland - where the authorities have already helped finance a Vestas manufacturing plant on the Kintyre Peninsula as part of an inward investment project.

Planning for windfarms in Wales has virtually stalled, with a number of call-ins by the Welsh Assembly resulting in refusal of planning permission, or lengthy and expensive delays through public local inquiries. A special irony, this, when Wales is the only country in Europe with sustainable development written into its constitution.

English approval rates for windfarms run at less than half that in Scotland. The English equivalent of NPPG6 (its Planning Policy Guidance Note 22, currently under review) lacks direction, and the Country Guardian pressure group comments revealingly (and approvingly) on its website that “the planning system has generally been successful in forestalling the majority of planning applications for windfarms, particularly in recent years”.

Would regional targets on greenhouse gases encourage the approval of windfarm schemes? It is difficult to see how such targets might translate into the local planning process, unless regional development plans were required to designate preferred windfarm areas. Which might ultimately have its attractions, but offers no imminent ‘fix’, especially since the process of approving a development plan is already fraught with objection, controversy and delay.

Meanwhile, unless planning guidance from central government emulates Scotland’s more proactive approach, local authorities in England and Wales will lack the political justification to support development, in the face of potentially fierce opposition.

There are potential solutions to NIMBYism, however. Education, early consultation and honesty on the part of the developer can win round an apprehensive local community - or at least ensure that objections are made on a rational basis. It may then be possible to take them on board, to the overall improvement of a scheme. Another more direct approach is to share the benefits of development. Part ownership of a windfarm by the community is already common in Denmark. On one site in Wales, where the developer offered this through a trust fund, over 3,000 people signed a petition in favour of the windfarm.

Nevertheless, in the absence of up-to-date guidance, the fate of wind power remains largely in the hands of the development control system. Approvals granted by the government, in appropriate cases where it is the determining authority, can provide a positive example to local authorities dealing with smaller but no less important schemes. And decisions on the larger schemes in the pipeline will be critical over the coming year. Energy Minister Brian Wilson has already given an indication of the government’s intentions by approving the country’s first 50MW scheme at Cefn Croes in Wales.

Much will also depend on which way appeal decisions go. But only if the apparent political will at central government level filters into action, policy and an example to local government, can wind power in Britain truly come of age.

Andrew Smith is a planning consultant with Entec UK in Glasgow.

30 October 2002

Andrew Smith