Chamber and committees

Celia Hobbs submission of 11 June 2021

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

I support this petition and give evidence as to the need for change. Our group helped our Council defeat two wind farms. We had the resources which come from living near a large city of professional people, able to understand and challenge the huge amount of information presented by developers. This is unlikely to be replicated in small rural communities and puts them at a severe disadvantage.

We had the disadvantage that everyone has, in that we had no idea if the Council were for or against the wind farm as Councillors cannot comment. This meant that until the Council decision we had to work alone and do everything we could to try to stop the wind farm. This wasted resources and time. At the appeal stage, we knew we were on the side of the Council.

It took the devotion of one member to rebut the Environmental Statement, co-ordinating an equally lengthy tome. It took a committed group with varied talents meeting regularly, sometimes while holding down stressful jobs, with complete back up from the wider group of on-line objectors who stuck with us for ten years. It took me giving up my occupation to coordinate the effort. Importantly it took over £150,000 in generous donations, a sum unlikely to be raised in small communities. This enabled us to hire experts necessary to represent us at the Public Inquiry. The 2000 objectors were entirely vindicated as the area is now included in the Special Landscape Area.

One of the committed group members submitted a precis of his personal precognition to the first Inquiry which I hope will be read to show the level of expertise necessary and the work involved in challenging the poor Environmental Statements and the actions of the representatives of the developer. Our group was told to look at things more closely when we had been trying to point out two of the turbines had the same position! We were granted £16,000 in compensation after the appeal for the consequences of their errors.

We made a presentation to the Councillors, planners and the public which was well received.

In contrast the wind farm developer took their turn and threatened the Councillors with the cost of an appeal if they rejected the application.

Long before the Application was decided a new society was formed as a vehicle to spend future possible wind farm benefit. After five years the Council won the appeal and immediately another application was made by a land owner for 6 large turbines a mere two miles away. We helped another group defeat this. No sooner had this been defeated than the original landowner, with a different company but same lawyer, put in for a large wind farm, three miles from the first.

We got 1,000 objections and then the developer withdrew the application, reapplied after several months, not having to pay another fee but wiping out our objections. We got 700 the second time but after eight years people were battle weary. We prepared another presentation for Councillors and the developer pulled out the afternoon before.

This time a Hearing was held, and we did not pay for experts although a local landowner was represented. We are indebted to the work of one committed group member who devoted three years to rebutting the plans and represented the group together with brave local people at the Hearing. The Council planning department could not devote the time our group put in to stop these applications.

You would expect that would have been enough. Before the Special Landscape Area was officially recognised, a local farmer who lived in a house which would have had 14 turbines 100 metres high a mere 900m from its frontage with a superb view of the hills put in for two turbines 35m high to the side of his house. After ten years everyone was heartily sick of objecting but even so there were a hundred objections and five in favour.

The Council rejected the application, but one Councillor called it in so the appeal went to the Government not the Council. I believe that calling in was designed so that if the locals disagreed with the Council decision a Councillor could pass it to Government. This was clearly not the case in our situation.

A Reporter then granted the appeal and passed these turbines even though the area was under consideration for being included in the Local Special Landscape Area. Our character was denigrated online in submission. As the decision was decided remotely, we had no chance to defend ourselves. The only recourse was Judicial Review which is prohibitively expensive and only sends the decision back to the same people to think again with no guarantee the decision will change.

I hope this is helpful to the Committee.