Chamber and committees

Lyndsey Ward submission of 13 June 2021

PE1864/EEE - Increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore windfarms

This submission is based on my own experiences, observations and what has been reported to me by others in confidence over the last decade. I have not seen or received any positive experience reports regarding engaging with wind development proposals in or out of the planning process.

The UK government has recognised that English communities require a say in wind developments with their opinions taken into account. The Scottish Government has denied local people such a voice. This is helping send those who wish to industrialise our iconic landscapes northwards in ever increasing numbers.

Communities in Scotland are once more under the most appalling pressure from multinational wind developers and a planning system stacked against them.

Those who have never objected to a wind development will not understand the abject misery and stress heaped upon ordinary folk. It’s extremely distressing, expensive and time consuming for those trying to protect their environment, wildlife and peaceful lifestyles.

Developers rarely live where they put their wind turbines – there’s a reason for that.

One only has to look at Shetland right now and its regularly photographed turbine construction process to understand what wind development really means to those who object. A divided community, a once iconic and peaceful landscape torn up – including the carbon holding peat the Scottish Government professes that it wants to protect.

There is no evidence that wind energy will change what the climate does. Key factors like emissions (and costs) from grid connections (often many miles from remote turbines) and necessary 24/7 back up are bizarrely missing from official calculations.

Climate change is not a reason to continue approving yet more turbines onto a grid that already struggles with what is connected to it now.

Onshore turbines today are so massive it was once thought their size would only be permitted offshore. Their devastating impacts are seen for many more miles. Rural Scottish citizens are being treated as irrelevant and their concerns dismissed as only planning policy objections count against a development, not opinion. These really need to be put forward by a paid professional to carry any real weight. Public Inquiries are difficult and unpleasant to be part of. Wealthy developers produce their experts to confront anyone, including laymen, daring to stand against them, so many feel they can’t.

People spend thousands of pounds of their own money and years of their lives to try and halt this seemingly unstoppable Scottish Government backed wind rush. It can be all consuming, exhausting, expensive and distressing.

There are often thousands of pages of developers’ documents to plough through and try and understand. Poor broadband connection means many of the large files are not readily accessible. Visualisations can promise little impact yet there is no recourse if the truth turns out differently. No turbine is removed because it is more overbearing on homes and the landscape than promised.

Developers approach communities with proposals for X number of turbines with impossible promises of how much electricity will be generated and emissions ‘saved’. Astonishingly how much money will be given in ‘benefit’ is bandied about. This has no place in any industrial development proposal and is not a planning consideration. It should never be allowed as some kind of ‘sweetener’ for the acceptance of any turbine development. After a public ‘consultation’ a few turbines may be relocated or removed once the community has been ‘listened to’.

A reduced scheme to get approval may soon be followed with an application for an extension and the developer could end up with permission for more and often larger turbines than was initially proposed, sometimes even before the original has been constructed. Once an area has been industrialised it would appear officials feel there is little point in protecting it further, extensions get approved and the turbine creep continues.

Developers don’t like refusals and routinely appeal local decisions and if unsuccessful may well come back with a slightly different scheme and try again, meaning more years of stress for the same community. No should absolutely mean no.

Local democracy has been sacrificed for wind development in Scotland. Decisions are often taken by government officials far removed from where the impact is felt. Affected communities should be balloted to see if the majority back wind proposals before there is a planning application and it should simply be rejected if local opinion is against it.

Local authorities and objecting communities should be supported with as much professional help as they need to be on a level playing field with any developer they may face.

I fully support this petition as will every person who has ever battled against a wind development in their community and I urge the Scottish Parliament to hand back control to the people who strive to protect the environment they live in.