I spent a couple of days in Milton Keynes earlier in the week joining conservation staff from across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These are the people often at the centre of the long running sagas of site protection that I cover in these posts – so it was good to spend a couple of days catching up with them.
We had a session reviewing some of the outcomes you’ve already heard about – the A11, the M4 and the Gwent levels, Lydd and others. It’s important to learn the lessons and share experience not least because the list of challenges ahead is showing no signs of slowing down.
While we were meeting in Milton Keynes, Purbeck District council were coming to a decision on a planning application for a small wind farm in Dorset. The so-called Alaska Wind farm has proved (in common with so many) controversial. We initially objected, and the original proposal for six turbines was withdrawn. The scheme was redesigned and re-submitted with significant modifications. We took the view there was no reason to anticipate that this new proposal would cause any problems to local bird populations. As a result, we did not objection to the re-submitted proposal.
This is often the outcome of the work we do – our objective is to safeguard key wildlife sites and the species that depend on them, not fundamentally to prevent development. Sometimes development and the protection of our battered natural world is fundamentally incompatible and there is no scope to find a workable solution – but that is actually rare.
The thrust of our meeting was looking at how our work to protect special places will change in response to the reform of the planning system that is now taking shape. We certainly don’t have all the answers yet – but the direction of travel is clear, neighbourhoods, communities, individuals – you - are going to have a bigger role in shaping the future of the places you know best and care most about. This revolution in planning poses some huge challenges, but equally some significant opportunities.
Back to Dorset.
As we assembled for our second day the news came through that the Alaska wind farm had been approved (subject to some conditions). This was a surprise because the recommendation of the planning officers of the local authority was to refuse the application. While we had concluded that our concerns on wildlife grounds had been met – there were clearly other issues to take into account.
We’ve yet to see the details of the decision, but one thing was clear from the meeting, there was significant local support for the proposal and this was taken seriously by their councillors in arriving at a decision.
To tackle climate change we need to move beyond fossil fuels, to ‘de-carbonise’ in the jargon and to do that in a time scale that meets the targets agreed by Government and enshrined in law, wind needs to play a vital role.
But not anywhere at any cost – the right development in the right place is an essential yardstick.
This outcome seems significant – a responsible developer who worked to meet concerns, a motivated community and a responsive local authority, and a decision that shows the right place can be found for such developments to go ahead, safeguarding our natural heritage and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
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Giving power to the people certainly has its dangers and it's always a worry when the officers (the professionals) are over-ruled by the members. There is now a large, unsightly bus depot (with inadequate landscaping) opposite Wolves Wood RSPB in Suffolk which went ahead against the recommendation of the local planning officers I think. No wildlife implications I imagine, just a blot on the landscape. Those of us who value landscape may be in for a tough time in the next few years.
A quick web-search suggests that the Dorset wind farm was quite controversial, with local people divided. Personally, I would rather the subsidies I pay for via my electricity bill went to finance new nuclear.